One other member of the Pennsylvania crime ring that stole hundreds of thousands of {dollars} value of artwork and memorabilia over 20 years has been sentenced. This week, 51-year-old Joseph Atsus of Covington Township, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to 48 months in jail, supervised launch and ordered to pay restitution of greater than $1m. He was convicted final yr on conspiracy prices, in addition to theft and concealment or disposal of main paintings, in accordance with the USA Lawyer’s Workplace for the Center District of Pennsylvania.
Between 1999 and 2019, the eight-man crime ring set its sights on principally smaller museums in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and North Dakota. Objects stolen by the group from museums embody an unauthenticated portray attributed to Jackson Pollock, Springs Water (1949), from the Everhart Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Higher Hudson by Jasper Francis Cropsey from Ringwood Manor in Ringwood, New Jersey, together with different useful objects like vintage firearms, gold nuggets, dozens of golf and horse-racing trophies and Yogi Berra memorabilia.
The group would transport the stolen items again to northeastern Pennsylvania. The group burned Cropsey’s Higher Hudson—valued at round $125,000—to keep away from the portray being recovered and used as proof. The whereabouts of lots of the different artworks are nonetheless unknown, in accordance with investigators, although a number of the stolen artwork should be saved in a protected location. A number of vintage firearms stolen from museums in New Jersey have been recovered by authorities.
Atsus is the sixth member of the group to be sentenced. One other co-conspirator, Nicholas Dombek, has been convicted however is awaiting sentencing.
