Mobster suspected in 1990 Gardner Museum heist to face judge on federal weapons charges
HARTFORD — An 81-year-old mobster whom federal authorities suspect knows where the paintings stolen from Boston’s Isabella Gardner Museum can be found is set to be sentenced Tuesday on weapons charges.
Robert Gentile has been under pressure by federal authorities to cooperate amid allegations that he’d been handed some of the paintings years after the 1990 heist and offered to sell them to an undercover FBI agent several years ago for $500,000 each. That deal collapsed, but federal authorities remain convinced that he is holding back what he knows.
Yet, after being snared in two FBI stings, spending four of the last five years in prison, and nearly dying from medical complications, Gentile insists he knows nothing about the stolen artwork, according to his lawyer.
On March 18, 1990, two thieves disguised as police officers talked their way into the Gardner Museum in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood, tied up the two guards, and pulled and slashed treasured works of art from their frames. They stole 13 pieces, including three Rembrandts, among them his only seascape, “Storm on the Sea of Galilee,’’ Vermeer’s “The Concert,’’ and works by Flinck, Manet, and Degas.
Gentile will appear before US District Judge Robert N. Chatigny in federal court for sentencing later Tuesday.
