Man pleads guilty to painting theft
Heirloom saved from Holocaust is still missing
A Sharon man has pleaded guilty to stealing from his neighbor a family heirloom that was smuggled out of Europe at the onset of the Holocaust - but the search continues for the painting.
Steven Zaharoff, 58, was sentenced to a year of probation after pleading guilty on March 12 in Norfolk Superior Court to taking the painting, an oil landscape of snowy woods, from a neighbor who had trusted him with the keys to his home while he was out of state in 2007. The artist is unknown.
Zaharoff initially told police that he found the painting by the bushes at the home of his neighbor, Charles Marks, and put the painting in his garage for storage. He said the garage was then broken into and the painting went missing, though he never reported a theft.
Meanwhile, he had submitted a photograph of the painting for appraisal to Skinner Inc., an auctioneer, Sharon police said.
Zaharoff has maintained that the painting was stolen from the garage, and it remains missing. His lawyer, Theodore Barone, was not available for comment yesterday.
Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating has registered the painting with the Art Loss Register in London.
"The value of this painting is not monetary. It lies in a history that must never be forgotten," Keating said in a statement. "It belongs with Mr. Marks' descendants."
Marks's daughter, Barbara, said yesterday that the family was happy that Zaharoff pleaded guilty, but expressed dismay over the missing painting.
"We just would love to have it stay in our family," she said.
The family realized the painting was missing when Marks was preparing for a move in 2007. Marks died later that year, at age 87, without ever knowing what happened to the heirloom.
His family searched for the painting, which had a historical significance: It was slashed by Nazis in the Marks's family home in Germany on Kristallnacht, or the "night of the broken glass," when Nazis pillaged homes and businesses in 1938 at the onset of the Holocaust. Marks's family fled Germany with few possessions, including the painting. The family had the painting restored and it hung in Marks's home for decades.
Milton Valencia can be reached at mvalencia@globe.com. 
