[CPProt.net] Truck driver pleads guilty in theft of Basquiat painting

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Truck driver pleads guilty in theft of Basquiat painting
  

September 9, 2005, 8:55 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) _ A truck driver charged with stealing a $1.5 million
Jean-Michel Basquiat painting from a warehouse at John F. Kennedy
International Airport pleaded guilty Friday to grand larceny, prosecutors
said. 

Anthony Porcelli Jr., 35, was accused of removing a wooden crate containing
the painting from a warehouse and driving away with it on May 4. Police
identified Porcelli after reviewing video surveillance tapes. 

The untitled acrylic-and-oil painting was sold for more than $1.5 million in
November at Christie's auction house in New York and was to be shipped to
the buyer in Rome. 

Porcelli faces one to three years in prison at his sentencing, which was
scheduled for Nov. 3, District Attorney Richard Brown's office said in a
statement. 

Porcelli's attorney, Robert DePalma, said his client cooperated with
authorities and helped them retrieve the painting, which was at a trucking
company warehouse in Elizabeth, New Jersey. 

DePalma said the painting was not damaged. 

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.