Paintings recovered after 32 years
Artwork worth $1m was stolen in home invasion
Three oil paintings, valued at $1 million, took a decades-long, winding path to Alan Yoffie's hands.
They were stolen 32 years ago from Mae Persky, a wealthy Shrewsbury woman, during an armed home invasion. And for at least 20 years, the whereabouts of Gustav Courbet's "The Shore of Lake Geneva," William Hamilton's "Lady as Shepherdess," and Childe Hassam's "In the Sun," were a mystery.
William Conley, a fledgling antiques dealer, needed about $20,000, to buy inventory for the Christmas shopping season about five years ago.
His brother, Patrick Conley, a prominent Rhode Island lawyer, developer, and socialite, had the money, but wanted collateral from his younger brother. William Conley offered up three artworks, telling his brother during the exchange that the pieces were "worth much more than $20,000."
Patrick Conley believes his brother acquired the pieces at an art auction somewhere in New England, and was not aware that they were stolen. "I never asked him, but my brother often bought from stores on Long Island, Connecticut, and Boston," Patrick Conley said yesterday in a telephone interview.
For several years, the paintings hung on Patrick Conley's living room walls. Dignitaries, top-level law enforcement officials, and the well-to-do crowd visited his Bristol home, but nobody connected the paintings to the brazen heist at 520 Grafton Street. Last year, Patrick Conley took them to a local art appraiser.
The appraiser had good news and bad news, Patrick Conley said yesterday in a telephone interview. Yes, the paintings were valuable, but they also came up on a national register listing lost and stolen art. The FBI came into the picture.
The discovery sparked a three-way tug of war between Patrick Conley, the insurance company that paid out $45,000 to Persky as compensation for the stolen pieces, and Judith Yoffie, niece of Persky.
Persky died several years ago and had named Yoffie in her will as the heir to the art.
Last February, US Attorney Robert Clark Corrente filed a complaint asking a federal civil court in Rhode Island to decide who is the rightful owner. Judith Yoffie died several weeks after the complaint was filed, and her lawyers replaced her name with the names of her children.
Last week, US District Court Chief Judge Mary Lisi signed a consent decree formalizing an agreement by all three parties that the rightful owners are Alan Yoffie and his siblings.
Patrick Conley received an undisclosed sum from the Yoffie family as a reward for "finding" the paintings. Bound by a confidentiality clause in the consent decree, he wouldn't say whether the amount is more than what he lent his brother. He said, "For the Yoffie family to receive the art, it was a very easy thing for me to accept. I felt from the outset that the paintings should go back to the original owner."
Gordon Cleary, one of three lawyers representing the Yoffie family, said yesterday, "The Yoffie family was absolutely elated to have the paintings, Alan Yoffie in particular. They were all fantastic in working toward a common goal of bringing about a resolution."
Shrewsbury police never arrested the suspects in the home invasion. According to police records, three armed men burst into the house and tied up Persky, her caretaker, and her nurse companion. The men ransacked the house, loaded the caretaker's car with the stolen goods, and drove away. The car was found days later. 