FBI pursues clue in Paris to art theft
Works said to be held by executive
Pursuing a possible lead on the whereabouts of priceless artwork stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, two FBI agents flew to Paris this week to meet with French prosecutors who are pressing a case against a wealthy executive who acquired an appreciation of fine art while amassing an entertainment empire.
According to the New York art historian whose suspicions prompted the meeting, the agents met for six hours on Tuesday with the French prosecutors to discuss the possibility that Jean-Marie Messier, former chairman and CEO of Paris-based
Alexander Boyle, 42, said he had received his information from an underworld source ''who has been right more often than wrong" in the recovery of stolen valuables. He said he provided information to FBI agents in Boston for more than a year and that they have interviewed his underworld contact, who is currently in prison.
Boyle said he had sat in on Tuesday's meeting between US and French authorities at the US Embassy in Paris but did not come away with a sense of what the FBI agents thought about the encounter.
He said French authorities photographed all the artwork in Messier's private collection after he was arrested last summer on charges of fraudulent stock trading. However, Boyle said he did not know whether the FBI agents had gained French permission to view the paintings.
Without identifying Boyle, the Boston Herald reported yesterday that the meeting in Paris had been set up after ''an art dealer and historian" had brought the information concerning Messier to the FBI.
An FBI spokeswoman in Boston said the bureau had no comment on the discussions. A spokeswoman for the Gardner declined to say what the museum had been told of the discussions, but said that executives there remained optimistic about the eventual recovery of the paintings and other works of art.
Boyle has raised his suspicions about the Gardner theft in the past. In September, a French judge considering a Messier appeal received a letter from Boyle accusing the businessman of having purchased four paintings from the Gardner collection, including two Rembrandts and a Vermeer. Boyle told the Globe last night that the fourth stolen work was a painting by Govaert Flinck, a Dutch Baroque artist who was a student of Rembrandt.
After the hearing, Messier's attorney, Olivier Metzner, called the accusation ''garbage."
Yesterday, Metzner continued to defend Messier's innocence and lack of knowledge of the whereabouts of any of the paintings. He said he and Messier stood ready to meet with the US investigators. ''This is ridiculous and slanderous," Metzner said, adding that he planned to petition the judge who had received Boyle's letter to bring charges against him for raising ''false allegations."
As head of Vivendi Universal for six years, Messier built an entertainment colossus worth $51 billion out of a specialty water company. He was replaced by the Vivendi board in July 2002 after the stock plummeted in response to the company's rising debt. Last year, Messier paid a $1 million fine to the US Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a civil fraud case against him.
Boyle had also approached the Gardner museum with allegations about the artwork's possible whereabouts some five years ago, one individual who was aware of Boyle's information said yesterday.
According to the individual, who asked not to be identified but was familiar with the information, Boyle stated that the artwork had been flown from Boston to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and from there to Genoa, Italy.
At a later point, it was transported by train to Paris, Boyle stated, where it wound up in the collection of a renowned German industrialist.
The individual stated that the Gardner did not give much credence to Boyle's information because it lacked sufficient detail that could be corroborated.
Stephen Kurkjian can be reached at kurkjian@globe.com. 