Blog Table of Contents FBI and Worcester Police with the recovered paintings from 1972 Worcester Art Museum Heist   The 1972 Worcester Art Museum Heist was a perfect success from a law enforcement standpoint. The stolen paintings:  Rembrandt’s  St. Bartholomew , Pablo Picasso’s  Mother and Child , and two works by Paul Gauguin,  The Brooding Woman  and  Head of a Woman , were quickly recovered by the FBI together with the city of Worcester police, and all of the perpetrators, were identified, apprehended and convicted, including  the mastermind,  Florian "Al Monday, who was given a prison sentence of nine to 20 years.   Like the Worcester art museum heist and really any theft or robbery, with the Gardner Heist law enforcement had two missions: to recover what was stolen, and to bring those responsible to justice.  As thieves flee the crime scene with what they have taken, catching the criminals and recovering the art ar...

Gardner Museum Heist Blog Table of Contents What’s Behind The Latest Rift between the Gardner Heist Investigation and Arthur Brand Factual Errors in Last Seen Podcast Episode 1 Factual Errors in Last Seen Podcast Episode 2 Factual Errors in Last Seen Podcast Episode 4 Factual Errors in Last Seen Podcast Episode 6 Factual Errors in Last Seen Podcast Episode 7 Factual Errors in Last Seen Podcast Episode 8 Errors and Discrepancies In Last Seen Podcast Complete Report The Gardner Museum Heist’s Basement Crime Scene (Part One) The Gardner Museum Heist’s Basement Crime Scene (Part Two) The Gardner Museum Heist’s Basement Crime Scene (Part Three) The Gardner Museum Heist’s Basement Crime Scene (Part Four) The Gardner Museum Heist’s Basement Crime Scene (Part Five) The Gardner Museum Heist’s Basement Crime Scene (Resources and Links) Gardner Security Consultant Steve Keller Comment to Ulrich Boser Interview 3/24/09  Ar...

Facebook Post from Rock Band Studio 2045  Studio 2045 September 26, 2014 Another rock and roll tale from back in the da y:  Back in the mid eighties, around the time I was wrapping things up at Berklee, my good friend (and fellow Berklee student/grad) Rick Abath and his band Ukiah lived in a big house on Farrington St. in Allston. Once every few weeks, they would throw an epic party to help raise money for the rent. They had the basement fixed up sweet with a bar and a stage, a PA, cool lighting and all the rock and roll trimmings. Plus a few kegs of beer. The good stuff too, black and tans and everything else one might wish to find at a party hosted by Berklee students and grads. $5.00 got you into the party, all you could drink, and three bands. Rick's band was always my favorite. These were by far the best parties in Allston. No one else's parties came even remotely close. I looked forward to them. I don't really remember them in great detail...

When Gardner Museum Director AnneHawley openly challenged the integrity of the FBI’s Gardner Heist investigation  by saying: ‘Their investigation was possibly corrupted and compromised from the start,” in the July 2005 issue of Smithsonian Magazine, it came at the historic low point for the FBI’s Boston office. Two months earlier, in May of 2005 Boston FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr., was formally charged with a 1982 gangland slaying in Florida. It was Connolly, who tipped off  James "Whitey" Bulger  about a pending indictment that led to his fleeing the state, triggering a worldwide 16 year manhunt. At that point, Connolly was already serving 10 years in federal prison for protecting FBI longtime informants including  Bulger.  That same month the Boston Globe reported another Connolly informant, “Stephen ‘The Rifleman’ Flemmi, had said “in two recent depositions that he and Bulger paid more than $200,000 to their FBI handler, J...