Results tagged “stolen”

Well this isn't a pretty picture, but who doesn't love an art caper come full circle? Last month two drawings by Russian artist Nicholas Roerich were stolen from the Nicholas Roerich Museum (where else?). While one piece was returned in the mail (with a return address), the NY Post now reports that a Brooklyn couple was busted at a LES Starbucks trying to sell the other one to an undercover cop. "Denis Ryjenko, 35, and his girlfriend, Natella Croussouloudis, 42, were arrested Sept. 3 as they tried to unload a small masterpiece. One of them even told the 'buyer' the painting was hot and warned him not to hang it on his gallery wall." The couple had been showing it to people in their Midwood apartment, and were prepared to sell the piece (which is worth well over $100,000) for $40,000. Their landlord told the paper they owed $7,500 in back rent and recently had their power and gas shut off.

Another musician is missing some treasured instruments, except this time they weren't left in a cab. Jazz musician Matthew Jodrell took the N train home after performing in Lower Manhattan on Sunday night, but an evening of jazz music is enough to make anyone nod off (we kid) and that's exactly what he did. Now he's out one Swiss flugelhorn and a Bach Stradivarius trumpet!

The Dyckman Farmhouse Museum has been burgled! The NY Post reports that 43 artifacts were stolen when the Parks Department was renovating it, which was reported back in 2007. "City records obtained yesterday reveal an alarming list of period pieces, lavish décor and jewelry stolen when the Parks Department and the nonprofit Historic House Trust hauled belongings out of the Inwood museum for an interior renovation." Some items date back to 1800, some made gold, some adorned with diamonds... and even a family cradle was swiped! The case has now been closed, and the "inconclusive investigation revealed several questionable decisions by the Parks Department, such as giving keys to Dyckman to 'a lot of Parks staffers and personnel over the years' and failing to always lock up." The original home was destroyed during the Revolutionary War, so, we suppose, this too shall pass.

Who could have predicted an art caper ending with a stolen piece being returned to the scene of the crime? One of two Russian masterpieces lifted from the walls of an Upper West Side museum has now been mailed back in one piece. The NY Post reports that the Nicholas Roerich Museum staff "were shocked Friday when the mailman delivered the $70,000 painting" (pictured) in a manila envelope where it was pressed between two pieces of cardboard. One employee told the paper, "I thought it was some junk mail. I opened the envelope. Everybody started jumping up and down." The sender even left a name and return address on the envelope (which was mailed from Brooklyn), though there's no word on if it's legit.

Is there anything Facebook can't do? A Park Slope family has now used the social networking site to track down an adolescent bicycle thief. Beth Harpaz, an AP reporter and author of The Girls in the Van: Covering Hillary, says a local teen used the oldest trick in the book to separate her 11-year-old son from his new BMX at the playground: He asked to "see your bike for a minute," then never rode back. (The trick even works on adults!) Harpaz tried filing a police report, but a beat cop discouraged her, saying, "If you file a police report, we'll have to arrest him. Just wait a few days. You'll get the bike back." And the policeman was right—though the BMX wasn't recovered thanks to NYPD detective work, but through Harpaz's dogged sleuthing. Long story short, some kids at the playground knew the suspect's first name and the Middle School from which he'd graduated, so Harpaz obtained a copy of the yearbook, identified him, and tracked him down on Facebook. After threatening to have him arrested, the unidentified thief revealed the bike's location, along with the combination for the lock. He also asked Harpaz, "Where do u live at?" but Harpaz knew better than to let him see her house for a minute.

A woman whose wallet was stolen from her purse in Central Park in 1982 finally had it returned to her last week after a worker found it stuffed inside the hollow of a dying cherry tree near Rumsey Playfield at East 72nd Street. The cash was gone (except for a single penny) but the discovery was essentially a time capsule for Upper East Side resident Ruth Bendik, a 69-year-old health care professional. She vividly recalls realizing her Reagan-era wallet was lifted one day while in she stood in a crowd watching the New York City Marathon. Fast-forward to last Tuesday, when a tree-care supervisor for the Central Park Conservancy found it after he took down the tree, cut it into large pieces, and began to root around inside a hollow to finish the job. The blue leather wallet was encrusted in dirt but still contained retro credit cards from Bell Telephone and Manufacturers Hanover Trust Bank, as well as Bendik's employee ID from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (right). Bendik's $20, however, was nowhere to be found. The wallet was turned over to the police, who returned it to Bendik the next day, according to the Post. The thief remains at large, but the trees are obviously mixed up in this somehow.

Early Monday morning someone stole a 200 pound replica of the Statue of Liberty that was bolted outside progressive cafe and bookstore Vox Pop in Ditmas Park, and now the Daily News has picked up the story. It's a nice bit of press for the troubled establishment, which has weathered severe financial storms in recent months—come to think of it, being robbed might not be such a bad publicity stunt for restaurants. Cabrito got lots of exposure when someone stole their goat, and Papacitos recently parlayed a burglary into an announcement about a major expansion. There's nothing indicating Vox Pop orchestrated the heist for free advertising, but owner Debi Ryan sure is at a loss to explain how someone managed to abscond with the 8-foot-tall fiberglass statue, which wouldn't fit in a car. Naturally, she suspects some shadowy right-wing conspiracy: "I have to wonder whether this theft was politically motivated. I mean, we aren't your everyday coffee shop." A "Find Liberty" rally is planned for tomorrow at Vox Pop, where a wide variety of beer, food, and other merchandise will be available for purchase—in solidarity!

Stay classy, Scarsdale: In the same week that the Mad Mom roadside abandonment story made headlines, another Scarsdale mom is in the news for stealing an estimated $12 million in gold from the Queens jewelry manufacturer where she worked as a vault manager. And according to her own confession, she did it one piece at a time over the course of six years! 50-year-old Teresa Tambunting's gold-hoarding hobby went unnoticed until January, when auditors at Jacmel Jewelry's Long Island City headquarters reported losses over the normal 3% rate.

Well, this is unsurprising. The Faile prayer wheel bolted on to North 6th Street in Williamsburg has been uprooted by some enterprising art collector (eBay seller). AnimalNY reports that "Despite being bolted to the sidewalk, the carved wooden post with a spinning prayer wheel on top has disappeared after less than a week. While it’s not clear who removed the piece, the motivation for doing so is: their work fetches tens of thousands of dollars." Ah, the five finger bailout.

A Torah scroll worth $50,000 was stolen from a rented SUV in Crown Heights yesterday, the Post reports. 21-year-old Levi Havosha says he had just returned from vacation with members of the B'Nai Avraham Synagogue in Brooklyn Heights, and decided to leave the Torah in his vehicle overnight and bring it back to the synagogue in the morning. But when he returned the next day, he found the window smashed and the hand-inked Torah scroll missing. Havosha is praying for the Torah's return, and he also wants to make sure the culprits are aware what they've gotten themselves into: "You're not messing with people anymore, you're messing with God."

Ever since cabs introduced credit card machines it's been nothing but trouble. The latest horror story has an absurd spin, however. Allegedly a 20-year-old girl was visiting the Big Apple when a cabbie stole her iPod. The story goes like this, as told by the girl's mother:

After the driver took her to JFK airport to catch her flight home, she tried to pay using her credit card. She had been using her credit card to pay for all her taxi cab rides. This time the card was not approved. She knew that she had enough money on the card to pay for the ride, so she called up the bank to find out what was wrong. They agreed that she had enough to pay for it but the driver’s machine used for the credit cards was not working. All the numbers were not going over either due to an equipment malfunction or a bad signal near the airport.

Continue reading "Cabbie Takes iPod for Fare"

30-year-old Long Island native Elbert Starks was arrested yesterday for allegedly shoplifting a live shark from Total Aquarium in Lynbrook. Police say the heist took place last month, when Starks—a sex offender on probation—grabbed a $350 nurse shark from a tank, put it into his jacket, and drove it to a new home in his apartment's aquarium. (The shark survived!) Starks is also accused of using a credit card stolen from another pet shop to buy a 2-foot-long green moray eel for $300, which he put in the tank with the shark. An employee tells the Post, "This guy obviously has a thing for fish." He's charged with grand larceny, which could land him in jail for five years; in his defense, Stark's lawyer explains, "He loves sea life basically, that's what it comes down to." (N.B.: This sharknapping took place weeks before our interview with a shoplifter, so it's definitely not a copycat crime.)

The Astroland rocket is in dire need of a home, Ruby's is closing its doors, everything is for rent...so it's not really surprising that Coney Island is being picked apart by vultures. The latest: Gowanus Lounge is reporting that the Coney Island History Project's Tricia Vita's memorial collage to Astroland was stolen. And NewYorkology reports that the city has approved plans to replace the original pier and boardwalk, which means the old wood is now for sale! "The material used for this project was a Brazilian hardwood called Ipe - a unique durable rain forest wood perfect for decking and outdoor use. It is now available for sale reworked or in its original condition with its natural ocean-weathered grey patina." (More info here for interested buyers.) Is Coney becoming the next Shea Stadium?

A White Plains man used a remote access program on his laptop to monitor the suspect who stole it, resulting in his arrest last week. The laptop was stolen on September 4th after Jose Caceres left it on top of his car while he carried stuff into his home. Using the remote tracking, Caceres was able to monitor the suspect's internet use, which he says primarily consisted of studying the remarkable migratory patterns of the Black-tailed Godwit. Kidding—it was porn, all porn. When the suspect, 34-year-old Gabriel Mejia of White Plains, typed in his home address to replenish his porn supply, Caceres tipped off police, who arrested Mejia just hours later. The sting is reminiscent of last May's bust of two thieves in Westchester, which took place after the owner remotely used the camera in her computer to photograph the suspects.

You just can't have nice things on Staten Island. When Gloria and Eric Glickman woke up Monday morning to feed the koi in their gorgeous backyard man-made pond, they were shocked to discover that between eight and 10 of their "prizewinning" (seriously) Japanese fish had vanished!

Annette Mateo appears to have been one toke over the line last night when she allegedly carjacked an NYPD van and took it for a joyride that almost immediately became devoid of joy. According to the Post, Mateo had gone to file an unspecified complaint at a police station in Harlem and became frustrated with the lackadaisical response from officers there. Storming out of the building at 9:40 p.m., she came upon two rookie cops switching seats in their police van. She then did what any sensible, tweaked out citizen would have done: she sent a message to the Man by stealing his ride (allegedly).

Just after Brooklyn's two-headed turtle made it into the papers, The Daily News reports that someone snapped up the rare reptile sometime between 11 a.m. and noon Sunday, right from its window spot in Sean Casey's Hamilton Dog House shop! Casey says it's imperative he "get the turtle back fast because it requires special handling," and he'll take the it back "no questions asked." But just how did someone pull off the mid-day turtlenapping? Casey had placed it in the open "so that the kids could interact with him," but when a customer inquired about it, he was shocked to find it missing. Currently he's getting together some $1000 in reward money for the turtle, and added that he grew up in Windsor Terrace and "did not expect it in this neighborhood."

            

There's an update on the intriguing story of William Milliken Vanderbilt Kingsland, "a threadbare eccentric and an amateur genealogist of the Upper East Side" who died in 2006, only to leave behind a world of confusion. To sum up this UES Man of Mystery, the NY Times explains upon his death "it was discovered that his birth name was Melvyn Kohn, that he resided not on Fifth Avenue but in a small apartment on East 72nd Street, and that he had not — counter to his claims — attended Groton or Harvard, nor had he once been married to a French royal." However, along with the confusion came hundreds of works of art and no will.

The Montauk Monster is still in the news (and on the Colbert Report), with the East Hampton Star now reporting that the mystery carcass is missing! More disturbing than that and the fact that the nation has been staring at a dead, bloated dog for a week, is the fact that the two locals holding the remains were planning to profit from the dead body. The duo were planning on reducing it to bones, creating some sort of artistic piece out of it, and watching the money roll in.

"Someone came and took the carcass. Now I have to hunt for my damn creature," said Eric Olsen, a Montauk real estate agent and surfer who retrieved the rotting animal from the beach.

Continue reading "Montauk Monster's Remains Stolen, Press Tour Continues"

The Post has it that a prep cook at Junior’s restaurant in Brooklyn is in hot water after a co-worker spotted him stuffing 15 lobster tails down his pants and into bandages around his legs. In recent weeks, Junior’s staff had noticed that the restaurant’s supply of lobster tails had inexplicably dipped. So when 40-year-old Raymundo Flores was observed in a walk-in freezer bulking up his trousers with crustaceans, coworkers called 911.

The NYC Parks Dept. is requesting that the Dept. of Justice return two sculptures of American eagles that were stolen from a war memorial to city employees back in the 1970s. The memorial itself is a flagpole located in Central Park across from the Naumberg Bandshell. It's called the City Employees War Memorial and was installed in the park in 1926 to commemorate the heroism and sacrifices that city employees made in all the wars of the nation's history to that point.

Remember that trusting cyclist who let a complete stranger “try out” his KHS bike – only to watch him pedal away, never to return? The story has a (sort of) happy ending, as the victim, Michael Green, relates in a long post on his blog, which uses that eyesore ‘white text on black background’ format. To spare you the eyestrain, here’s the gist: While Green was out of town this weekend, a couple of his pals in the cycling community spotted his distinctive bike in Alphabet City, being pedaled by “a short Hispanic male, in a cameo thermal shirt who looked very awkward and did not possess the skills to ride a brakeless fixie.”

Cartoonist Harry Bliss has been drawn into a bit of controversy over at the New Yorker because his illustration for last week’s cartoon caption contest (right) is the spitting image of a Marvel comic book cover from 1962 (left). Bliss’s editors were seemingly unaware of the resemblance, and no credit was given to the original, inked by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers. And yes, life is now imitating Seinfeld episode #169, in which The New Yorker publishes a Ziggy cartoon inadvertently plagiarized by “some charlatan” (Elaine).

A Westchester woman who had her laptop stolen didn’t even bother with old fashioned signs like the one pictured here – instead she remotely used the camera in her computer to photograph the culprits. The laptop was stolen from her apartment on April 27th along with $5,000 worth of other electronics.

Bike thieves in New York have been known to use everything from electric saws to Bic pen tops in order to separate bikes from pesky locks, but no method is more effective than convincing a cyclist to just hand over their ride.

A McDonald's on the corner of 56th and 8th in Manhattan is missing a Ronald -- but an aerial view of the area shows him safe and sound lounging on a private rooftop. Williamsboard posters report, "someone who lives in the six-story building next door took advantage of a second floor window that lets them out onto the McDonald's roof...".

Everyone is abuzz about the latest art world scandal, and here's what is known about the life of the Warhol painting at the center of the controversy.

1981: Andy Warhol creates a number of his "Dollar Sign" pieces, using the same theme with different colors and sizes. Medium: polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas.

Continue reading "New Woes Over Stolen Warhol"