New theory airs on Gardner museum theft

As the 14th anniversary of the theft of priceless artwork from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Musuem approaches, a new account of the daring heist has emerged, one centering on a Charlestown underworld figure and the Irish Republican Army.

According to William P. Youngworth III, who has long contended that he knows what happened to the stolen art, now-dead Charlestown gangster Joseph P. Murray made overtures to authorities in the early 1990s to barter the return of the 13 pieces stolen on March 18, 1990, including paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer, in return for release of an unnamed IRA prisoner jailed in England.

The heist at the Gardner, the largest theft of artwork ever, has long frustrated investigators, who have chased down hundreds of leads without any success. As the city's St. Patrick's Day celebration wound down in the predawn hours, two men dressed as Boston police officers persuaded the museum's security guards to open the doors to the treasures.

Youngworth said that he and Fred Ford, who served as Murray's probation officer after his release from federal prison, gave their accounts in interviews with ABC's "Primetime Thursday" for a show which will air tonight.

"I'm not saying who he reached out to, but Joe Murray had the ability to end this thing where everyone winds up happy, but they wouldn't pick up on him," Youngworth said.

Ford has declined to be interviewed by the Globe but Youngworth said that Ford has given a similar account to ABC.

Youngworth, a former antiques dealer and ex-convict, engaged in intense but ultimately fruitless negotiations with the US attorney's office in 1997 over his claim that he could arrange the paintings' return in exchange for complete immunity and the reward money.

Ford, who became a lawyer after leaving his job as a probation officer, is serving eight years in federal prison for hiring a hitman to kill two former clients. In a letter to the judge before his sentencing in June 2000, Ford traced the abandonment of his principles to 1996, when some of his criminal clients proposed that they try to locate the stolen Gardner artwork.

"I was to handle the legal end of things with the authorities, in order to secure the reward and share equally in it," Ford wrote.

However, Patrick Nee, a former associate of South Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger who was convicted along with Murray on charges of running guns to the IRA, said Tuesday that he knew of no attempt by Murray to barter the artwork's return and denied that there was any IRA involvement in the theft or the hiding of the paintings.

"As far as I'm concerned, there's no IRA-Gardner connection," Nee said. "Whatever Youngworth is saying is simply not true. It's a complete fabrication. "From what I can read into this, Billy Youngworth is writing a screenplay, a work of fiction," said Nee, who acknowledged he is writing a book about his life. "Everyone's gone Hollywood. The bug's bitten everybody in this town."

But according to a soon-to-be published book on the involvement of Irish criminals in international art theft, Nee's name was given to the FBI in 1999 by a retired detective who had established the stolen art and antiques squad for Scotland Yard. The detective said Nee had some knowledge of the whereabouts of the stolen paintings.

Dick Ellis, who now operates a London firm that recovers lost and stolen artwork, is quoted in "The Irish Game: A True Story of Crime and Art" by Matthew Hart as saying one of his informants was approached by a known handler of stolen property and was told that Nee had offered him the Gardner paintings for $10 million.

In an interview with the Globe this week, Ellis confirmed the account in the book and said he had turned the information over to the FBI's Boston office and the private investigator hired by the museum in 1999. The FBI, Ellis said, discounted the tip, saying that Nee had been in prison since 1991, after being convicted in a scheme to hold up an armored car in Abington. Nee was released in 2000.

Nee said he was unaware of the book and called the claim "foolishness."

The Globe reported in 1994 that Murray had told private investigators that he had information about a major art theft, but did not specify which one. The theft of the Gardner paintings, valued at more than $250 million, was the largest art heist ever.

A person familiar with Murray's case told the Globe yesterday that Murray did have access to the stolen paintings. Murray, he said, "had an arm on the guy who had the paintings" and claimed that he could secure their return in exchange for the release of an IRA member.

Murray, who was convicted of attempting to smuggle arms to the IRA aboard the Gloucester-based trawler Valhalla in 1984, was shot to death in his home in Belgrade Lakes, Maine by his wife in September 1992. Shortly after his death, Joseph Murray's brother, Michael, who was under indictment on drug trafficking charges, took up the claim that he could orchestrate the return of the paintings, but failed to deliver any proof that he could, according to the person familiar with Joseph Murray's case.

US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said yesterday that the FBI continues to actively investigate the theft, and he stood ready to cut a deal to get the paintings back, offering immunity from the prosecution and the right to collect the $5 milion reward.

"I think under the right circumstances we would consider immunity in exchange for the return of the artwork," said Sullivan, adding that 14 years after the heist investigators still don't have the information they need to locate the artwork. "There are probably only a handful of people out there who know how the artwork was taken and a handful of people who know where it is. I would encourage those people to contact this office and the FBI to see if we could reach an agreement for the return of the artwork."