Factual Errors in Last Seen Podcast Episode 4
1. BOSER: “My name is Ulrich Boser, and I'm the author of "The Gardner Heist." My book argued that David Turner and George Reissfelder were the individuals who robbed the museum.”
To say that his book “ argued” Turner and Reissfedler were the thieves is an overstatement: “If Turner was involved, George Reissfelder was probably his main accomplice, the shorter thief.” Boser’s book, The Gardner Heist, page 199.
Somehow book reviewers missed this essential point of Boers’s book. None I found online referenced Turner or Reissfedler. Publisher’s Weekley wrote: “After the death of a legendary independent fine arts claims adjuster, Harold Smith, who was haunted by the Gardner robbery. Boser carried on Smith’s work, pursuing leads as varied as James “Whitey” Bulger’s Boston mob and the IRA.”
And around the same time in 2018 Boser said on a different podcast Empty Frames that "I'm less certain about that we know the two individuals who walked in as much as we have that clustering, whether its Leonardo DiMuzio, George Reissfelder, David Turner you've got the crewish we feel good about.
2. MURPHY: “[In 206] "I was hearing some things about whether or not he might cooperate. And I looked at the Bureau of Prisons’ website, which shows a release date. And when I looked at it, I knew. I said that wasn’t the release date that was there before. And I noticed that the release date had changed. So that’s how I saw it, that I knew that he initially was supposed to get out on one date. And suddenly, they just took off a bunch of years.”
HORAN: “David Turner’s 38-and-a-half-year prison sentence was suddenly seven years shorter. Why?”
It was not suddenly seven years shorter. The Boston Globe had twice reported three years prior, in 2013, that Turner was scheduled to get out in 2025 without remark, including one story that had a Shelley Murphy byline.
There is no proof that Turner received a secret sentence reduction. The release date shown on the BOP website does not indicate or suggest a reduced sentence since the BOP.gov website which serves as the sole source for the Boston Globe’s secret sentence reduction story, states speicfically, that: “the projected release date displayed reflects the inmate's statutory release date (expiration full term minus good conduct time)” and not the full sentence the person received from the judge.”
https://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/about_records.jsp
https://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/about_records.jsp
If Robert Gentile, for example served his full sentence he would have gotten out in 2020, not 2019, but the BOP.gov website very closely matched Gentile’s actual release date and not the sentence he received from a judge.
One of David Turner’s partners in the Loomis armored car depot sting was Stephen Rossetti, who received a sentence six years longer than David Turner for involvement in the same crime and Rossetti and was released from prison shortly before Turner. Even if had received a sentence reduction there is no evidence, or indication that it could have been in any way related to the Gardner Heist.
3. MURPHY: “It's frustrating. All these theories are frustrating. For everything that points toward these particular suspects there's something that points away.”
If there is as much exculpatory evidence, evidence, that points away as there is evidence pointing to the suspects, which is very little, then these are public relations place holders, not actual suspects.
4. HORAN: “And after that? There are no credit card receipts for the day of the heist, March 18. But, Steve says, there is one for two days after — March 20.”
KURKJIAN: “It showed he was turning in a vehicle, a rental car, at the Fort Lauderdale airport, and using his credit card to pay for that vehicle. But on that receipt is another driver’s license number.“
KURKJIAN: “This was a ploy by him in order to later tell the investigators, “Oh, I was in Florida at the time.”
HORAN: “It’s-- he created an alibi.”
KURKJIAN: “He created an alibi.”
Awkward wording about this piece of evidence (“Steve says” “it showed) return of a rental car in Fort Lauderdale well over 48 hours after the Gardner heist in Boston is not an alibi. Therefore, Turner didn’t “create an alibi.”
5. HORAN: “In 1974, the pair [Resifelder and Beauchamp] escaped from prison.”
Reissfelder didn’t escape from prison, he simply didn’t return from a one-day furlough
6. BEAUCHAMP: “Turner was interested in getting out of the drug business. And I kept telling Reissfelder the same thing.”
There is no corroboration for any of Beauchamp’s claims and Anthony Amore, for one, has said Beauchamp is not credible: “Every single person, so far, one them is Myles Connor, one of his associates is Billy Youngworth, who's come forward and said it, this guy, his name is Robert Beauchamp, who was the prison lover of a guy named George Reissfelder, who I was talking about earlier, they're all charlatans and that's the nicest word I can use for them. Hucksters.
7. HORAN: “Even as that documentary aired, Santos was trying to find the courage to leave Reissfelder. She finally managed it in 1989. The following year, her divorce would come through, and her ex-husband would join a cast of men named in connection to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery.”
Reissfelder was not mentioned as a possible suspect in 1990 or until over 15 years after the Heist. Reissfelder has never been named as a suspect. No one has ever been named as a suspect. In 1990 there is no evidence to suggest investigators were looking for the kind of local suspects associated with the Gardner Heist for the past ten years. .
Boston Globe 5/14/90 “As details begin to emerge about the two-month probe, law enforcement sources said that the suspects' movements are under close scrutiny by federal agents, including one suspect who was under surveillance during a recent arrival at Logan Airport… Sources were divided as to whether any of the suspects were currently in Massachusetts, noting that they frequently traveled from city to city.
The FBI made no attempt to speak with Myles Connor in 1990, Boston Globe 5/13/90, and never spoke with James “Whitey” Bulger about the robbery.
Interview of FBI Boston SAIC Richard DesLaurier May 13, 2013
Mike Nikitas: "Whitey Bulger got arrested a year and a half ago, have you ever talked to him about this, asked him whether he knows anything about it [the Gardner Heist]?"
SAIC DeLauriers: "No."
Nikitas: "You haven't?"
SAIC DeLauriers: "No."
Nikitas: "And you think it wouldn't be worth doing that?"
SAIC DeLauriers: "No. There's no connection to the Bulger investigation."
Nikitas: "Does he, maybe he knew of the theft?"
SAIC DeLauriers: "There's no connection to the Bulger investigation." Time: 4:03
“As of the time I left (in 2001), they knew no more than they did the day it happened." —retired FBI agent and Gardner heist investigation supervisor Tom Cassano
Some months after we met, I called the agent [Retired Gardner heist FBI investigator Robert Wittman] to check in, and during our conversation, I asked him about some of the people who’ve been accused of being behind the heist over the years, people like David Turner and Bobby Donati and George Reissfelder. “Nope,” he said. “Don’t know them.” 2009 “The Gardner Heist” page 114.
8. RODOLICO: “Anthony Amore, who is still looking at the TRC gang, isn’t so sure [they were not involved [in the Gardner Heist].”
AMORE: “They were capable. You know, if someone mentions to you the Merlino gang, which was a pretty big gang, out of TRC Dorchester, no one doubted their capability to do any sort of crime. And they were doing all sorts of crimes. And to say that they could have pulled off the Gardner? Yeah, they could have done it. Absolutely.”
And in 2018, when Last Seen was still in production, Anthony Amore was asked if he know who did it and he said that he does know whoe did it. So Amore is sure whether it was the TRC gang or not.
Also, in 2017 Amore said "Eventually after ten years [Fall of 2015] because of certain people I was looking at, that I feel were involved, and I know Myles knew them. One night I decided it's time to meet Myles." —Anthony Amore 3/30/17
Myles Connor was not associated with TRC, or Merlino, or Turner, Reissfelder, or DiMuzio. None of these people or TRC are mentioned in Myles Connor’s own book, or in any public media account. So if the thieves were people who knew Myles Connor, to the extent that Anthony Amore would, after over ten years on the job, make the effort to go out and meet with him, then the thieves are not from this TRC automotive gang, since Myles Connor and this gang are not connected.
9. HORAN: “George Reissfelder does resemble the police artist’s sketch of one of the suspects. Long narrow face. Prominent chin. Bowl haircut.”
We don’t know what kind of haircut the thieves had from the police sketches. They were wearing police hats. One of the thieves was described as having “puffy black hair.” In any case Reissfelder did not have a bowl haircut in 1990, and while he does have a prominent chin, it is a distinctly squared-off chain that is unlike the police sketch.
10. DESLAURIERS: “For the first time, we can say with a high degree of confidence we've determined that in the years since the theft the art was transported to Connecticut and to the Philadelphia area. For example, recently, we determined that approximately a decade ago some of the art was brought to Philadelphia where it was offered for sale.”
And an FBI press release from the same day ended with: “where it was offered for sale by those responsible for the theft.’”
In the same Last Seen episode, Jack Rodolico said: “If the Gardner art did surface in Philadelphia around 2003, some key people there would have known about it.
Turner had been incarcerated for 7 years by 2003. Reissfelder died in 1991 eliminating the two men as people who could have been both responsible for the theft as well as trying to sell the art in Philadelphia at that time.
In addition, Abath has said numerous times that Reissfelder was not one of the thieves. If Abath was not involved, then neither was Reissfelder. Abath: “I can tell you that George Reissfelder wasn’t one of the guys in the museum that night. For one thing he was too old (49 at the time of the robbery). But also, from the pictures I’ve seen of him he was too swarthy. Unsub #1 was very white, not an albino but his skin tone was whiter than Reissfelder’s.”
