The Howie Carr Radio Network
34 Years Later, the Search for Stolen Art Continues with Anthony Amore | 3.18.24 - The Howie Carr Show Hour 3
Howie welcomes the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's head of security, Anthony Amore, to the show to discuss the ongoing search for the paintings that disappeared in a suspected heist in 1990. The hunt is not over, and there is quite the reward being offered for the tip that will lead to the paintings.
- Duration:
- 38m
- Broadcast on:
- 18 Mar 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
Today's podcast is brought to you by Howie's new book Paperboy. To order today, go to HowieCarShow.com and click on "Store." [MUSIC] Better strap yourself in. It's time for the Howie Car Show. We're going to put a 100% tariff on every single car. If I get elected, now if I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath. And here we go. We're not stupid. Americans aren't stupid. He was talking about a bloodbath. Because he's even predicting a bloodbath. What does that mean? He's going to exact a bloodbath? Live from the Matthew's Brothers Studios. Trump warning while discussing the economy that there would be a "bloodbath" if he is not re-elected in November. That is completely taken out of context. He uses the word bloodbath. Yes, it was in the context of an automobile industry speech, but he knew exactly what he was saying. It's called the wrap-up smear. You smear somebody with false hoods and all the rest, and then you merchandize. And then you write it, unless they see it's reported in the press, so they have that down a day. Some swabs, hacks and moon baths beware. It's... [MUSIC] Howie Car... Welcome to the Howie Car Show 844-542-42. If you miss the St. Patrick's Day breakfast at Halitosis Hall in Boston yesterday, you didn't miss anything. There was one kind of funny joke. As far as I could see from the reports, I didn't stream it or anything like that. I don't even know if you can't stream it anymore, but the treasure of Norfolk County, Michael Bellotti, had a joke and was something like... So this black guy walked in with a Latino guy and an Asian guy, and he said, "No, this isn't a joke. This is Michelle Wu's Christmas party at the Parkman House." I don't know what kind of response it got to. Probably not. I read the stories in both papers. That was the only joke I thought was worth even repeating, and I didn't try to get any audio of it, because it wasn't even that great. 844-542-42. I think it's even funnier that Mara Healy is trying to take credit for being a tax cutter. Now that's funny. We'll play you that cut in the next hour. But right now, it's time for the Chump Line. [music] [music] Who would have ever guessed that St. Patrick's Day at Halitosis Hall would be a bastion of diversity in a world of WU Klux Klan holiday parties? Was that Michael Bellotti calling in the treasure from Norfolk County? Yeah, I know. The WU Klux Klan running the show. The North End restaurant tours were outside the Iron Workers Hall demonstrating to treat us equal, even though we're white males. Good luck with that. [music] Those were the good old days. He used to bring in the former state treasurer, Bob Crane, to write his material or his songs. That was in the days when humor still counted for something. I mean, there were a lot more misses than hits even in those days, but at least they gave it a shot. Global unrest is battering the food supply chain and the energy markets. It's incumbent upon you to be prepared. Get ready with ReadyWise. Go to ReadyWise.com and use code Howie20 to get 20% off your next purchase. Although not widely reported, it was also revealed in testimony that Nathan Wade's favorite song is David Lee Ross, "I'm Just a Jiggle-O." [music] He'll be taken care of, though. They always get taken care of. Will he get a $10 million book contract like most of them do for a book that sells 15 copies? Probably. Trump needed endorsement from Mike Pence about as much as Bud Light needed one from Dylan Mulvaney. Oh, did you see that? She put out a Dylan Mulvaney. She put out on social media that he/she had an idea for doing a Bud Light commercial with a cowboy. And Dylan was going to offer a cowboy a Bud Light. The cowboy was going to take it, and it was going to be a piece of harmony. You know, instead of I'd like to give the world a Coke, it was I'd like to give the world a Bud Light, but you know what? Transizer Bush did not respond to her. To her is entreaty to come back all us forgiven. Oh, yeah, they already made Brokeback Mountain. But, you know, I'm surprised that story didn't get more play. It just got a very brief mention in the New York Post over the weekend that Dylan Mulvaney was playing. Don't your eyes glaze over any time you see Bud Light in a headline now? Well, yeah, they actually they do, but I mean the fact that she's trying to crawl back. I mean, isn't that like Yaya Senoir or whatever the hell the guy's name is that's the head of Hamas saying, you know, I really do. I really do like Jewish people. She wrecked the company or he/she wrecked the entire company. That Bud Light is never going to be number one again. And it's it wasn't good news for Budweiser either or or Michelob Light or Bush. It wrecked the whole company. I was for the bloodbath before I was against the bloodbath. It's not get ridiculous here. Right. It's like tar baby was a perfect expression when Democrats used it, but then when a Republican used it became a racist slur. I want to congratulate makeup resinsky. She's done the impossible. She married someone dumber than she is. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. I'd like to give them a the GED, not certainly not the Mensa test or the SATs, but maybe the GED. Let's see how they do on the GED. They my money would be on Joe by a hair. The only bloodbath I care about is one happens at the grocery store every week. Oh, I got a story for you about a burritos in San Francisco. This guy's getting killed on social media. He has one of the best burritos in San Francisco and he just went through and explained why his prices have doubled. And it's just it's devastating. It could be a it could be a Trump TV cut TV. One bump, bump, bump. Some people are saying that my 32 hour work week will cripple productivity. That's just a myth being pervade by the Koch brother. The truth is it'll foster millionaires to work their fair share. Like you who only works 20 hours and spends the rest of the time gallivanting with billionaires at the breakers and mama lago. I wonder what Bernie thinks of what's going on at Berlin. And he probably this is this is what he's been dreaming of. Is it tie a life is turning turning the place into a third world hellhole like where he comes from originally, which is Brooklyn, New York. Hey, is it me or do Brandon's new shoes look like they were made by the goons on Popeye. You know what I hadn't thought about that, but I think you're right. That's that's really a good observation. Hey, this is a case where when Trump says something, we know what he says. When Biden says something, he doesn't know what he says and we still don't know what he says. Hey, let's don't don't have such this fact for the man. But I tell you what. We had very respect meetings with union leadership. Disbacked meetings with the union leadership. That was your last chumpline message. Thank you for calling how we car, you chump. All right, that's it for the chumpline today. The chumpline is the recorded voicemail message service of the highway car show. You can call and leave a message at any time between the hours of 1 and 4 p.m. Eastern time to chumpline number. If you wish to leave such a message eight four four five hundred forty two forty two eight four four five hundred forty two forty two press two for the chumpline. And leave your message. We may or may not play it at this time each weekday. If you didn't hear your message or you just like to your brand new chumpline every evening, we have one. It's called chop chumps. It's where we put the messages. We didn't have room with time for just now. Chop chumps is posted every week night evening around 7 p.m. It's all those messages again that we didn't have room for just now. You can get chop chumps the second chumpline of the day wherever you get your highway car show podcasts. The global unrest is battering the food supply chain and the energy markets. It is incumbent upon you to be prepared. Get ready with ready wise. Go to readywise.com and use code how we twenty to get twenty percent off your next purchase. There's an endorsement from Mike Pence about as much as Bud Light needed one from Dylan Mulvaney. Yeah. And she still wants to kiss and make up. Transize her Bush said. Well, you know what they said. I'm how we car. Did you know that between hosting a four hour radio show multiple media hits political advocacy and walking Roscoe the Wonderpug. I call it a dog. How he still finds time to write three combs a week. Oh, I'll read his latest at HowieCarShow.com. You're listening to the Howie car show. Today's poll question is brought to you by Eden Rafferty attorneys at law to see what happened to my leg while having cryo performed at restore hyper wellness go to Eden Rafferty dot com. That's Eden Rafferty dot com. Taylor, what's the poll question. What are the results thus far today's poll question which you can vote in at HowieCarShow.com is are you better or worse off than you were four years ago better worse or about the same. Worse. 91% say worse. Six percent say about the same. Three percent say they're doing better. All right. Eight four four five hundred forty two forty two. Dylan Mulvaney is a guy. I'm getting a lot of heat from the I just I read the stories and it sometimes just seeps in. I'm sorry. I got a man. It is man. No, you're a he villain is a he. How dare you. Sorry. No, I'm not sorry. Anyway, this was a really good story over the weekend at PJ Media. I put it on Howie's homework. If you want to check it out. How a twenty two dollar San Francisco burrito explains by economics. Apparently, there's this guy. His name is Richard Lopez and he's got a his name of his place is Lavaca Beria. And Beria is a meat stew from a particular region of Mexico. And he he does a really he does a really good job with it apparently. But the pride the fact is two years ago one of his burrito burritos cost eleven bucks. And now it's twenty two bucks. And so he got he got ravaged in the reviews. This guy, Richard Lopez Ricardo Lopez. And he's got one of the reviewers said don't get me wrong. It's still a damn good burrito. But for twenty four bucks after taxes, there are so many better food options in this city. So this is how Lopez put on a put out a lengthy response to this. We wish we could do something about our prices. But for us to stay in business, we need to charge the correct amount to reflect food cost and labor. Our Beria is a multiple day process that starts with preparing the adobo and butcher butchering the meat, which is a three hour process followed by six hours cooking in the oven chilling overnight. As you can imagine the tray we braised the Beria in for about six hours has some baked on food that takes an hour or so to clean. Now when we started minimum wage was around sixteen bucks. Today it's eighteen bucks. Most of our guys make more than the minimum wage. That may not seem like a lot, but with a staff of ten. That's three thousand a month extra. Now we get into the cost of our beef. Again, this is a place in San Francisco that makes burritos. We use choice beef from the Midwest since two years ago. Control and law. You know, Lopez did not mention big meat. Since two years ago, the price has risen two fifty per pound. We use around twenty five hundred pounds per month, which is sixty two hundred fifty dollars more in beef alone than we used to pay. Those two things labor and beef cost us over nine thousand dollars in additional costs every month that we now have to pay. Oil used to be twenty dollars a case. Now it's fifty dollars a case. White onions used to cost twenty dollars a case. Now they're eighty dollars a case. So now he continues writing. So now with just these four items, we're at ten thousand dollars additional monthly spending expenses versus two years ago. And it started during covid, obviously, and now it's just gotten worse. He's being accused of price gouging, which is the refuge of all leftist charlatans as PJ Media. And when gas prices go up, for instance, because Joe Biden stops drilling. Groceries are twenty percent more than they were in twenty twenty one when Trump was president. Prices are up thirteen percent from just twenty twenty two. Lopez and his customer's situation is all of America's situation. Everything is more expensive and it will get worse, not weather, better because of the swamps profligate spending and its inflationary effect on your wallet. Yeah, so I mean, you know, who's buying a burrito for twenty two bucks, twenty four bucks with with taxes, especially when it was it was twelve bucks two years ago. You're not buying it. He's the guy's going out of business. And so it's what are you going to be left with? You're going to go to Oakland and go to Taco Bell? Oh, that's right. They're all shut down. Well, one of them, one of them is still open, but four of them are that they don't have any more a dine in eating. They just have takeout drive through because they don't want their help getting shot. But sooner and sooner or later, the robbers will start going to the going to the drive through like they did at the in and out burger in Oakland and they were robbing people as they were going through the drive drive through. So where it where people going to eat once all it once everything is gone out a bit once everything is gone out of business. They're going to have to get their own food, right? And of course, a lot of the a lot of the supermarkets will be shut down if they're in the if they're in the non working class areas because they they've they've been shoplifted into bankruptcy and then they will claim that there's a food desert and that the food desert is caused by racism. Stop me if you've heard this story before. And and and also the same thing for pharmacies and drugstores, even though Al Sharpton is saying that locking up my toothpaste. Ayanna Pressley blames the fact that drugstores are going out of business in in her her urban district in Boston to racism. Of course, it's racism. Eight four four five hundred forty two forty two eight four four five hundred forty two forty two. The woman in a woman from California who moved to Nashville goes to escape the squalor in in in in in California. She moved next to a place called Roy's Meat Service, a butcher shop that has been at its current locale for years. So she decided she didn't like the smell of meat. So she wants to put this Tennessee butcher out of business. I'm not making this up. This is another one from PJ Media, Dear Progressive. This this is why we hate you. Robbie Starbucks had some great people have moved to Tennessee in recent years, Natalie Castillo. You're not one of them. You left California, but what made California fail lives in you. It's an ill ideology and we don't want any of it. A lawsuit that set up the butcher shop that has been there for 40 years. She moved there. Sewing is here in the outdoor opportunities on the Cape are special. Biking, hiking and whale watching are just minutes, if not moments from Nossett Beach Inn. When I visited, I was so impressed with the ever changing ocean view, which can be seen from every room. Nossett Beach Inn is pet friendly. Each room has two queen size beds, so it is very family friendly as well. It's a room from 249.99 and in May, rooms from 269.99. Reserve your room today. Nossettbeach Inn.com. That's Nossettbeach Inn.com. Live from the Matthews Brothers Studios. It was 34 years ago today. 33 years ago today, I guess. No, 34 years ago today. I keep 91.90. It's confusing. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was robbed and all the paintings were stolen out of it and there were hundreds of millions of dollars and they still haven't been recovered after all these years. There is a $10 million reward for the return of the paintings. We haven't talked about this for a while, so I thought it was a good day to do so. I got a call from a listener and there's a story in the paper about it today. We're having on Anthony Amore. He's the Director of Security for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I just wanted to check in with him briefly about what's going on and who you should call what numbers you should use or email websites if you see something or hear something. Anthony Amore, thanks for being with us here on the Howie Car Show. How are we always happy to be on? Is there any new news? I saw on the paper today, you still get lots of tips, but is there anything warm lead-wise? There's always something warm, but that's the problem with how you and I have discussed this a bunch of times. You either recover the paintings or you do not. That's what makes this sort of investigation so tough. It's not like a homicide investigation where you find suspects, you build a case against them and you hand it off. This one, until you have the stuff in your hands, it's not over. We have warm stuff, but it has the lead to a recovery or it's useless. The FBI said a few years back that they knew or they thought they knew who had actually committed the robbery or the burglary or whatever you want. I guess it was a robbery because they broke in and they tied people up. But the two people were dead. Now, does the FBI still think those were the two people who did it or have they changed their mind? Well, yes. What I would say, though, that's really important for people to remember is when somebody calls me and says, "I have information about Mr. Action, Mr. Y." They're not the ones who we've spoken about previously as having determined they were involved. Bryce Felder and the guy, Lenny D'Mursio or something like that. We don't discuss the names. Those are names that have been passed around in the media before. What I mean is if we get a call from one of your listeners tomorrow saying, "No, it was, I believe it was these two people who had never heard of it before." We're going to investigate it with full dust, though. We're going to issue that because until the paintings are in our hands, you cannot just sit back and say, "No, no, no, we know everything that happened." It seems like as the years go by Anthony Amore, the more people think that they're never going to be found. If they weren't destroyed, they were hidden somewhere, and the person who hid them is now dead and didn't tell anybody in that they're slowly deteriorating over the years. What are the odds that they're still in good condition so that they could be put back up on the museum walls fairly short? The odds are very high that they're in fine condition, however. People have to remember, for instance, the Rembrandt storm in the Sea of Galilee, that was painted in 1633. It wasn't in climate control until 1995. So, you know, 360 years, it was in homes at Amsterdam, and it was in hot museums, and subjected to smoke and light and everything else. The paintings are resilient, and it's very, very rare. Off the top of my head, I can't think of an instance where a painting came back and it was in condition that couldn't be repaired. I don't really worry about that so much. I don't believe they're destroyed. We've never heard any credible information from anybody, and that would be the easy out for someone who we're questioning. Never heard that destroyed. It's incredibly unlikely that they were. We pursue it as if these are in fine condition, and they'll be repaired and put back in the walls, and that always happens how we always. One other thing I want to point out is I do understand people saying, "Well, they're never going to be recovered." Believe me, I've been looking for 18 and a half years, but what I would say is that that's what they said about finding white mythology. That's what they said about this painting by William de Kooning, worth $110 million that was found after 35 years. That's what they said about Paul McCartney's original bass guitar, which was found last month after 50 years. Things change, people are more willing to talk. The right person sees the right image, that sort of thing. I believe the paintings will come back for all those reasons, and because we're working really hard to find them. Now, who's the lead police agency at this point in tracking down the missing paintings? It's the FBI. I work alongside an FBI, one FBI agent who's an art crime team agent, and he's very successful at recovery yard. In fact, he was in the paper a couple of days ago for recovery abuse, Okinawa, and antiquities that were returned to Japan last week, I think. He's a really smart agent. He knows this stuff, and he works alongside me. We've been together for a couple of decades. We're talking to Anthony Amore, the director of security for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and he's been looking for the paintings for a long time now. There's a $10 million reward. $10 million. Is that taxable or not, Anthony? As I always say, everything in this country is taxable. If the government is going to tax anything they can, so I understand that it's taxable. But still, it's a nice payday. It would still be like $6 million if you could turn it in. And I think that they would probably not be a problem with law enforcement, would they, if you weren't to turn them in? Well, I have to be very careful because I don't want to offend any of the federal authorities. I understand. But the key is to get the paintings back. It's not to put somebody in jail. Exactly. Everybody is committed towards recovery. That's all we talk about. I've never had conversations about prosecutions, and as your listeners know, I've been on this for a very long time. Everybody wants just the paintings we put back in the frames. We want to pay the reward, and I'm glad you brought it up, Harry, because nobody doesn't want a $10 million reward, taxable or not. We want to pay it, and there are people out there who think we're going to pull a fast one as if we're in the business of building people out of rewards. The rewards backed by pillars of society. These are very, very good people. Our museum and our board. These are excellent people who solely want to see paintings back in the frames where they belong. Where do people go? I don't want to deluge you with crazy tips, but there's no such thing as real. You want tips. You don't know whether they're going to be good tips or bad tips, so there's no shame in calling in if you think you've seen something. Right? Thank you for saying that. I'm happy to be inundated. But the key is very important. We're not looking for theories, right, because anybody can throw out a theory. We're looking for facts. So if somebody thinks they saw something, please be in touch. I've heard something in the past about our paintings, get in touch with us. If you were watching CSI the other night and it dawned on you, that may be the odd man, because Shogi had our paintings. Well, that might not be so useful. But if you have facts that you want to share, don't be afraid, you're not going to be ridiculed. And most importantly, your name is never going to be shared. You're going to be assured. And if you doubt me before you call or before you email, Google me, and you will see that I've never betrayed anyone's confidence. So people can get in touch with me and be assured of their safety. And what about this guard who died? I know he was questioned over and over again, but he was never a serious suspect, was he? Well, you know, 80 to 90% of all museum heists involved an insider to some degree. So, of course, he was questioned often. Of course, the other guard was questioned often. And frankly, many of the employees at the museum at the time were questioned. They were asked if they would take polygraphs, fingerprinted. So, you know, he understood God rest his soul. And he understood that he's the guy that let them in. He understood that he's going to be suspicious. He's going to be cast upon him. But we never developed any information that definitively connects him to the crime. But he was just basically a hippie and it was the after the St. Patrick's Day party in the days when St. Patrick's Day party was even parade and everything was even bigger than it is now, much bigger. So, I mean, he was just careless. They picked the perfect night to do it, didn't they? You know, you said it perfectly. I mean, you understand crime and you understand that error. And you know, like I always say, if the guard had followed the policy and the protocol, she would have not let them in and called the police and it wouldn't have happened. But so I like talking to you about crime. You understand? Well, that's the sort of criminals there were in Massachusetts at the time. They'd give something a shot, you know, and maybe they'd wait three more years and try again a different way or just give up on it. So, yeah, you had guys back. You had guys back then that would steal paintings and just stash them for the next time they got jammed up with something serious so they could trade the paintings for their freedom in bigger cases. It becomes very common and it started here in Massachusetts because Miles Connor stole a Rembrandt from the MFA to negotiate with prosecutors. And now you see that worldwide. People use paintings as get out of jail free cards. So you're absolutely right. This was Wild West in a different way than it is now. And, you know, there's just a lot of players out there who could have been involved. Yes, people are texting in and saying some rich Arab has him on his walls. But that's kind of like, you know, a that's detective story stuff, you know, like the James Bond movie when he goes when he's kidnapped by Dr. No and he sees the stolen painting of the time on Dr. No's submarine, right? They're exactly right. It's a perfect example. They even call it the Dr. No Fairy. And these are the types of things that I'm not looking for. They are not on the walls of some sheet in the country that has never happened in history. And that's not where ours are now. I'm guessing they're behind a wall somewhere. That's a very, you're on the right track. I mean, that's a very common method. Some of your listeners know I spend lots of time talking to art views. And many of them have, you know, they just bust a hole in the drywall. They put the art back there. They patch it up. It takes them an afternoon. And, you know, but now we have technology where the FBI is this amazing device where they can look right for a wall. I can't tell that's right, basically. And we've searched dozens and dozens of properties that the public isn't aware of. But most of the time, you know, there's that a lot of people think it wasn't in the newspaper didn't happen. But we've searched a lot of places looking for these things. Well, so where should people go if they want to get in touch with you or the museum or the FBI to talk about the paintings, the missing paintings and the $10 million reward? I would advise them to email me. My email address is so easy to remember. It's simply reward@gaudemuseum.org. Reward@gaudemuseum.org. Always call me, 617-278-5114. I do have to say as an aside how we're your audience. So he's offered particularly interesting tidbits of information. So I welcome your emails and your calls. Thanks. Give us your phone number one more time, Anthony. Sure. Sure. 617-278-5114. All right. Thanks. I would love to have given the tip that leads to the tip. But it's worth talking about. It's an unsolved mystery. How much are the paintings worth? Last question. How much are they really worth now? You know, we've always had $500 million, but I've been saying that for 20 years. I mean, that's the minimum of what they're worth. They're worth far more than that. But people should remember the 10 million is the biggest reward that's ever been offered by a private institution. And you don't have to give me the paintings for it. Do you have to tell me where I can get them? And I can't speak for the authorities, but I don't think you have to worry about any law. They just want the paintings back. Everybody wants the paintings back. Anthony Amore, Director of Security at the Isabella Stewart Garden Museum. Thanks for being with us. We appreciate it as always. I'm Howie Carr. The Howie Carr Show will be right back. I'll be Carr is back. I just tweeted out the story I wrote for Breitbart in 2015, identifying the two "purps". The FBI is sure. I'm not sure. But I was sure the FBI was sure, so I wrote the story. The two guys, there were thugs, Lenny Demusio. He was with this Dorchester crew. He later got whacked by the other people in the crew. He had a place in Jamaica Plain. He had a garage downstairs where they shot him. The guy who bought it was a local pole. He turned it into a man cave and called it Lenny's last call when he Demusio. The other guy was George Ricefelder. He was convicted of a murder and apparently didn't commit it. His lawyer got him out, John Kerry. John Forbes Kerry. He did it in 1982 when he was running for Lieutenant Governor. He was on the news every night. John Kerry getting this guy out, George Ricefelder. That was 1982 and then 1990. The guy takes part in the biggest art heist in history. A year later he's dead of a drug overdose, which was a pretty suspicious drug. He was a drug user for sure, but they wondered why he happened to overdose at that particular time within about a year of the heist. So it was Lenny Demusio and George Ricefelder. Lenny was shot by everybody in his gang and they gave everybody a gun. It was like a movie. They gave everybody a gun and said everybody shoot him so that everybody could have killed him. Then they put him in the trunk of a car and he took him over to East Boston and left him in the trunk of the car. That was Lenny's last call. I don't think George Ricefelder doesn't get asked much about George Ricefelder anymore, but you can read the story. It's still kind of interesting. Again, I don't vouch for the FBI as you know, but since nobody else wanted to print the names and the FBI was shopping it around and they were both dead, so I didn't have to worry about the malice of forethought and reckless disregard for the truth, because that's what you have to worry about if you're the Associated Press and you said those terrible things about Bernie Moreno or in the Ohio Senate, Rice. Anyway, 844-542-42. Someone says I've seen a theory that they were handed off to some low-level mobsters. Lenny was a pretty low-level mobster and Ricefelder wasn't much above him in the packing order. I think they were put up to it by some crew. I don't know which crew. I'm how I car. [BLANK_AUDIO]