The Sword AND The Stone (Part Eight)
Blog Table of Contents
The ransom note from 1994 essentially
proposes that if authorities are not willing to give a sentence reduction to inmate or criminal “X,” then an alternative means of getting the stolen Gardner artwork back would be to pay a $2.6 million
dollar cash ransom instead.
“The letter
writer stated that the paintings had been stolen to gain someone a reduction in a prison sentence, but as that opportunity had dwindled dramatically there was
no longer a primary motive for keeping the artwork,” according to Stephen Kurkjian in his 2015 book Master Thieves
Was the Note Authentic?
Former Gardner Museum Director Anne Hawley said of the April 1994 ransom note the museum received:
It was a letter. It was extremely well written and it referred to things in the case that were not known publicly. And the FBI got very excited about it. "We took it seriously in 1994 and we continue to take it seriously," Geoff Kelly said on American Greed in 2008.
What if?
What if the thieves had offered to make a deal, back in 1990, but the authorities found the terms of the deal proposed unacceptable. They might then decide also, that releasing that information to the public would
put the Gardner’s stolen art in greater danger, or jeopardize other law
enforcement priorities. In that case the FBI might well withhold that information, just
as they are now withholding the name of the individual who was in the surveillance video and did not announce that now had that information until a reporter inquired:
“Last week, in response to inquiries
from the Globe, [Kristen] Setera said investigators have identified the man, but declined to name him publicly or say whether his admission to the museum is considered
suspicious.”
“’Investigators have determined the identity
of the individual and the public’s assistance is no longer needed,’” Setera
said.” Boston Globe May 23. 2017
A press release would be the standard procedure in this case.
In deciding whether actions and
inaction from the outset of the investigation might support this theory: That the identities of the thieves were known,
not starting in 2010, or 2013, but all the way back from the beginning when a ransom demanded then the
saga of the Gardner Heist surveillance video, shows the willingness of
investigators to share and to withhold, to engage and disengage, to direct and
at the very least permit the misdirection of the public to achieve their
objectives. It also suggests that the objectives of the U.S. Attorney and those
of the FBI may differ, at least during the tenure of Carmen Ortiz.
When the announcement was made that there would be a Gardner Heist “public awareness campaign” by U.S. Attorney Ortiz in June of 2012, there was no
public comment by issued by the FBI and the Boston Globe reported that the
Gardner Museum had actually refused to comment on this good news
story, that millions of additional dollars were going to be expended in an
effort to get their paintings back:
“Museum officials would not comment for this article. But Amore sounded optimistic recently (7 weeks earlier) at
a lecture at the Plymouth Public Library when he said he believed the works
will be found.”
Prior to this initiative, going back
until at least 2009, there had been an effort to downplay expectations, to get the
public to go along with limiting the scope of the investigation when
then U. S. Michael Sullivan said in a WBUR interview:
“What
is the real purpose of the Gardner Museum investigation? Is it to prosecute the
person or persons that were involved in the heist or is it the return of
the art work? Here this art work is irreplaceable. And here we are 2009
and we’re saying let’s try to encourage people to come forward with any
information no matter how small they might think it is or how culpable they may
be and encourage them to provide the information so we can get the artwork
back. And if it means immunity we’re certainly receptive to it.
This Gardner Heist public affairs protocol, of identifying the thieves but not naming them, that has become the amorphous face of the
investigation since it began in 2013, seems to have been in response to
pressure from the public, and the mass media, for answers to the whodunit question of the investigation.
Increased awareness was to a great
extent due to efforts by the U.S. Attorney’s office to include the public in
the investigation. This was inspired by the success of the social media campaign deployed
in nabbing Whitey Bulger two years prior, they said. The social media campaigns to help with the Gardner
Heist, one in 2013 and one in 2015, were both initiated and launched by the U.S.
Attorney’s office, but with appears to be a good deal of ambivalence by the FBI.
Evidence pointing to the culpability
of the security guard Rick Abath, which became known to the public twenty years after the robbery, was also adding to the curiosity and interest as to who
the thieves had been.
Calibration Timeline Of The Investigation In the Modern Era
March
18 2013 Authorities say they know who the
thieves are but are only focused on getting the paintings back. Even though “you never know what might jog someone’s memory,” a Boston Globe editorial point out, authorities decided that releasing the names of the
thieves was incompatible with recovering
the art, time: 3:43 while suggesting that it was low level organized crime
figures from the Northeastern United States, who were responsible.
February
2015 Authorities say they know who the
thieves are, but are not saying who it is. Buh-ut, mutely gesturing at a Power Point presentation shown only to a couple of friendly reporters, who can render this ad hoc sign language into written text, investigators remain solely focused on getting the paintings back.
March
18. 2015 Authorities say they know who the thieves are.
They’re dead. They are solely focused on getting the
paintings back.
August
7, 2015 Still declining to name the men, the FBI asserts ”We
know who the thieves are “through
great investigative work” we identified who did this heist and both
those individuals are deceased. “So now the focus of the investigation is the
recovery of the art.”
The public wanted answers about who
committed the crime so the authorities provided answers with the help of the
Gardner Museum and the media. The public may not like the answers, they may
consider them dubious answers, but they are answers.
In coming up with these answers, aspersions
have been cast on individuals, including retired Lt. Colonel, and Viet
Nam war veteran Larry O’Brien, as well as against whole classes of people, and the entire city of Boston. The Gardner security management team, the Museum director, the trustees none of them lived in the city, at the time of the heist, but when the paintings turned up missing and were not returned, it became the North End's fault, or Southies fault, or Dorchester's fault.
In the effort to enlist the public's help on the art recovery effort, while burying the question of the identities of the thieves, a federal government sponsored social media campaign seems to have morphed into an antisocial media campaign.
Are unsound answers from government investigators and their dependencies justifiable so they can get the public's help with a recovery, without having to forthrightly address questions of the apprehension or identification of the culprits? Does the public have any say in answering that question?
by Kerry Joyce
