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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania man who was part of a group that stole paintings by Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock among other valuables was sentenced to eight years in federal prison after pleading guilty to theft of major artwork.
Thomas Trotta, 49, of Dunmore, is the fourth person sentenced as part of the investigation into thefts that took place over more than two decades at 20 museums, stores and institutions. World Series rings that once belonged to baseball great Yogi Berra were among the stolen items.
Trotta was directed to pay $2.8 million in restitution as part of his sentencing Thursday. He had already been jailed.
His lawyer, Joe D'Andrea, said Friday that Trotta was “the main burglar, he was the one that went into the institutions and burglarized them.”
Gino Bartolai, attorney for defendant Nicholas Dombek, who awaits sentencing after Trotta testified against him and two others, said he sees eight years as a short sentence considering the many burglaries that Trotta has admitted to committing.
“The coin of the realm when you cooperate is you get a break,” Bartolai said. “And that’s what he got -- he got a big break.”
Bartolai said a sentencing date for Dombek, 54, of Thornhurst, and the other two men has not been scheduled. D'Andrea called Trotter the main government witness against the three.
Many of the stolen artworks and other material remains unknown, federal prosecutors said Friday. The thefts occurred in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, North Dakota and Washington, D.C.
Trotta admitted to stealing the Warhol silkscreen “Le Grande Passion" and Pollock's 1949 oil-on-canvas painting “Springs Winter” from the Everhart Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 2005, prosecutors said. In that theft, the thieves were apparently aided by a large tent covering the back entrance for an event as they shattered a glass door. The Pollock painting was estimated in 2023 to have been worth nearly $12 million.
“Springs Winter” had been on loan to the museum from a private collector. "Le Grande Passion,″ owned by the museum, was created in 1984 on commission for an ad campaign for Grand Passion cognac. An official at the museum said Friday those works have not been recovered.
D'Andrea said Trotter believed he knew where the paintings had ended up in Newark, New Jersey.
“He thought he did,” D'Andrea said. “But when the authorities went to the place he thought it was, they couldn't find them.”
Prosecutors said Trotta also admitted to stealing rings and MVP plaques worth a collective $500,000 from the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center in Little Falls, New Jersey. He was also implicated in the theft of a Tiffany lamp, boxing and horse racing items, and items linked to baseball slugger Roger Maris and golf legend Ben Hogan.
Berra's rings are thought to have been melted down and sold for far less than they were worth as baseball memorabilia. Gold nuggets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars were taken from Sterling Hill Mining Museum in Ogdensburg, New Jersey.
“Upper Hudson,” an 1871 painting by Jasper Cropsey estimated to be worth $100,000 or more, was apparently burned in an effort to conceal the crime, according to the U.S. attorney's office. It was taken in 2011 from Ringwood Manor in Ringwood, New Jersey.
