[CPProt.net] Truck Driver Sentenced For Basquiat TheftAllegedly Stole The Painting From A Warehouse

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Truck Driver Sentenced For Basquiat TheftAllegedly Stole The Painting From A
Warehouse
 
(New York - AP, November 3, 2005) - A truck driver who pleaded guilty to
stealing a $1.5 million Jean-Michel Basquiat painting from a warehouse at
John F. Kennedy International Airport has been sentenced to one to three
years in prison, the Queens district attorney announced Thursday.

Anthony Porcelli Jr., 35, pleaded guilty to grand larceny in September.
Prosecutors said he drove away with a wooden crate containing the untitled
acrylic-and-oil painting on May 4. Authorities said he was identified by
police through surveillance tapes. 
The painting had been on its way to a buyer in Rome who had paid more than
$1.5 million for it at Christie's auction house in New York. It was found at
a trucking company warehouse in Elizabeth, New Jersey. 

A message left for Porcelli's attorney, Robert DePalma, was not immediately
returned Thursday night, but DePalma said in September that the painting was
not damaged and that his client had cooperated with authorities and helped
them retrieve it. 

Basquiat, a darling of art critics who was praised for his strong use of
color and the social commentary in his work, died in 1988 at age 27 of a
heroin overdose.