[CPProt.net] Riker's officer suspended in Dali painting scam

[Museum Security Network / Cultural Property Protection Net (Ton Cremers)]

Riker's officer suspended in Dali painting scam
  
By DAN JANISON
STAFF WRITER

March 31, 2005, 6:13 PM EST

Two years after a famous Salvador Dali drawing was stolen from a jailhouse
wall, city investigators are accusing a correction officer of creating the
crude fake that was left in its place.

Officials said Thursday that George Sheehey, a 17-year correction officer,
is suspended without pay in connection with the clumsy caper in which three
other officers pleaded guilty and one was acquitted.

Sheehey is not being criminally charged -- though he's the Department of
Investigation now calls him the creator of the copy, which was detected
within hours of the crime.

Correction officials suspended Sheehey based on charges that included
failing to report what he knew about the theft. The original was never
recovered and authorities believe it was destroyed by one of the thieves as
probers closed in.

Last June the accused mastermind of the theft, former assistant deputy
warden Benny Nuzzo, was acquitted on all charges after a month-long trial.

Dali created the ink and pencil sketch, which depicts the crucifixion of
Jesus, and dedicated it to Rikers inmates after cancelling a planned visit
to the prison due to illness in 1965.

The switch was discovered within hours by an officer who regularly prayed
under the original -- and noticed the copy looked wrong and its frame was
missing.

The piece, valued at $250,000, was stolen March 1, 2003, from the wall of a
Rikers Island visitors' center during a fire drill staged to conceal the
crime. The fake was then stapled into a display cabinet without a frame.

"The individual has been suspended for 7 days based on the most recent
information in the ongoing DOI investigation," said Correction spokesman Tom
Antenen.

Sheehey is expected to be suspended again at the end of that period pending
the resolution of administrative charges. He's been on "modified duty" --
reassigned from his post at the Eric M. Taylor Center on Rikers -- since
March 2003, Antenen said.

A voice-mail message left Thursday for Sheehey's lawyer went unreturned.

In a statement from her office, Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn
said: "I am pleased that the Correction Dept. is initiating disciplnary
action against this officer who engaged in this conduct and did not come for
with information, as is required by city law."

"DOI investigators determined that (Sheehey) drew the fake crucifixion
painting that was used by individuals as a substittute for the original
Salvador Dali painting which they stole from Rikers in March 2003," she
said. 

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