French connection: FBI wants to quiz mogul over Gardner paintings

Boston Herald ^ | February 11 2005 | Tom Mashberg

[danno3150]

In a bizarre twist to a 15-year-old mystery, two Boston FBI agents are in Paris this week probing whether an indicted French media mogul knows the whereabouts of art heisted from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in March 1990, the Herald has learned.

According to an American art dealer and historian, the agents want access to French legal records surrounding the arrest of Jean-Marie Messier, the embattled former CEO of the entertainment conglomerate Vivendi-Universal.

The art expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was present for six hours on Tuesday when the FBI agents and a French prosecutor discussed whether Messier, under indictment for embezzlement and securities manipulation, might have acquired paintings stolen from the Gardner while building his own collection in the 1990s.

``It was a good introductory session,'' said the art historian, who has assisted in the recovery of stolen art in the past and brought the Messier angle to the attention of the bureau. ``It's a complex thing getting the agencies to cooperate.''

The art expert told French officials he believes some of the most prominent Gardner works, among them a Vermeer and three Rembrandts, were shipped to Paris by way of Genoa in the 1990s. He asserts several pieces of art ended up in the private collections of various rich Europeans like Messier.

The art specialist, who says he gleaned his information from underworld contacts and his own relentless Gardner sleuthing, has pushed the Messier angle for more than a year in talks with the FBI.

With the Gardner case stymied, the bureau decided to fly two special agents, lead Gardner investigator Geoffrey J. Kelly and bureau official Patrick Gibbon, to Paris along with the art dealer, whose fare was picked up by the bureau.

A U.S. Embassy legal attache, Jay Abbott, was present when the men met with a French prosecutor attached to the office of Paris investigative magistrate Henri Pons.

FBI officials in Boston and French law enforcement authorities declined to comment on the meeting, and a press aide at the U.S. Embassy in Paris did not respond to two voice-mail messages.

But French attorney Olivier Metzner, who represents Messier, said by phone from Paris the allegations were ``totally without merit'' and ``the kind of information pulled from a trash pail.''

``Mr. Messier would never traffic in stolen art,'' he said. ``We will sue for libel anyone who says so.''

[danno3150]

The story of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft is one of the most bizarre true crime stories of all time. The cast of characters sounds like something out of and Elmore Leonard novel. There was the rock singer, who was also a double murder, his drug addled buddies, incompetent cops, implicated cops, the museum with few security systems and no insurance, the IRA, and now the French media mogul. Court TV has a nice synopsis of the case, if you're interested.

[Redbob]

But an Elmore Leonard novel would have included at least one street-wise white guy from the Detroit area, maybe St. Clair Shores or East Detroit, a guy who used to hustle stolen cars but who's moved up to art theft because you're less likely to get caught, or to get sent to Jackson or Milan if you do.

[Cicero]

A good friend of mine has worked as curator of the museum. It's a wonderful institution founded by a beautifully eccentric Boston lady.

Curiously, the Protestant Boston Brahmins of the nineteenth century had a Romantic love affair with Catholic Renaissance Florence, as you may see from reading Nathaniel Hawthorne and others of the time.

I hope they can track down the stolen paintings. It's an abomination when thieves do this kind of thing, usually cutting the canvas and damaging the paint in the process.

[danno3150]

You're right, of course. However, if this case gets any crazier, they might just find a Detroit petty criminal had some involvement. Then my analogy will be proven correct.