Sommelier Stole Art Openly, Police Say

New York Times
By RICHARD P?REZ-PE?A
Published: July 15, 2011

A man with a larcenous bent and modest means, eyeing some trifle in a shop, might just walk in, grab it and walk out. But if this thief has very refined, very expensive tastes, coveting something like, say, a Picasso, how does he manage to steal that?


Mark Lugo, of Hoboken, N.J., is accused of stealing ?T?te de Femme,? a 1965 pencil drawing by Picasso, from a San Francisco gallery on July 5, and 11 other works from locations in New York.

San Francisco Police Department, via Associated Press
Mark Lugo
Apparently, according to the authorities, he just walks in, grabs it and walks out.

Mark Lugo, 30, stands accused of a four-week spree that the authorities say netted a dozen art works, simply by pulling them from gallery and hotel walls in Manhattan and San Francisco, with little more effort than it takes to shoplift a candy bar. After he was arrested in California in connection with the theft of a Picasso drawing, the police raided his home, a nondescript flat in Hoboken, N.J., on Tuesday and turned up works that had been stolen from New York hotels and galleries, including a Picasso and a Fernand L?ger, that they said were worth about $500,000.

Mr. Lugo, a sometime sommelier who has worked at upscale New York restaurants like BLT Fish, had no less rarefied desires in wine. He has been charged with stealing $2,000 bottles from a New Jersey store.

There is no sign that Mr. Lugo intended to sell any art. The police say he displayed his acquisitions in his apartment ? his own private gallery.

?Some were hanging on his walls, some propped up around the apartment,? said Sgt. Sam Williams of the Hoboken Police Department. ?The way it sounds, he just likes art.?

Mr. Lugo was arrested last week in the theft of a Picasso drawing in San Francisco, where he is being held on $5 million bail. He pleaded not guilty to that charge Friday.

?I think there is some psychiatric episode going on,? his lawyer, Douglas I. Horngrad, said. ?Everything we?ve heard that Mark has taken, he?s apparently taken in a short period of time, with no indication of any such activity before then. So this sounds like the act of someone in the middle of a compulsive episode.?

In the five-story brick building on Washington Street where Mr. Lugo had lived for at least five years, neighbors described him as friendly but quiet, someone who worked late, slept during the day and hosted parties. His girlfriend was often there, they said, with a King Charles spaniel puppy.

Neighbors had no idea what treasures the apartment contained, but one, Brett Manwaring, got a glimpse of Mr. Lugo?s artistic sense when the building?s exterior was repainted bluish gray.

With the new color, ?he was happy to have guests over,? Mr. Manwaring said. ?He enjoyed the aesthetics.?

Mr. Lugo has been charged with the April theft of three bottles of Ch?teau P?trus Pomerol, worth a total of $6,000, from Gary?s Wines in Wayne, N.J. The wine has not been recovered.

The New York Police Department said the 11 artworks recovered in Hoboken were taken from June 6 to July 1, from victims including the Chambers Hotel, the Opera Gallery, the Skot Foreman Fine Art Gallery and the Jack Shainman Gallery.

On the afternoon of June 27, a 1933 Picasso etching print disappeared from the William Bennett Gallery on Greene Street in SoHo. William Ledford, the gallery owner, said that the work, ?Sculpteur et Deux T?tes (Sculptor and Two Heads),? is somewhat bigger than a legal pad, and worth about $30,000.

That night, someone stole a L?ger work of India ink on linen from a lobby area of the Carlyle Hotel on East 76th Street, whose security staff notified the Police Department at 3:30 a.m.

The L?ger, ?Composition aux Elements M?caniques (Composition of Mechanical Elements),? dates to 1917, and had been on loan to the hotel for a few years from the Helly Nahmad Gallery, nearby on Madison Avenue, said Christina Warner, assistant director of the gallery. She said the work, smaller than a letter-size sheet of paper, is worth $350,000, making it the most valuable item Mr. Lugo has been accused of taking.

On July 4, the police said, Mr. Lugo flew to San Francisco. The next day, a Picasso pencil drawing from 1965, ?T?te de Femme (Head of a Woman),? was stolen there from the Weinstein Gallery, near Union Square. Roland Weinstein, the gallery owner, said the drawing, similar in size to the L?ger, was worth more than $200,000.

It appears the thief made little effort to evade detection.

?As far as we can tell,? Mr. Ledford said, ?he just took it off the wall.?

At the Carlyle, security cameras recorded a man matching Mr. Lugo?s description entering the building, and then exiting with a small package a short time later, the authorities said.

Mr. Weinstein said that one of his employees had seen a man leave the gallery and get into a taxi with what appeared to be an artwork, not wrapped up as it would be after a sale. ?She took down the taxi number, ran back inside, saw that it was gone, and called the police,? he said.

The San Francisco police quickly tracked down the driver, who said the passenger had mentioned the Hotel Palomar. ?Almost immediately, they had video of him from in the cab, from the hotel, and from Lefty O?Doul?s restaurant near us, and they knew his name,? Mr. Weinstein said.

The police arrested Mr. Lugo the next day in Napa Valley and recovered the Picasso drawing.

Mr. Ledford and Mr. Weinstein said they immediately upgraded their security systems. Thefts are rare because stolen art is hard to sell, they said, but the case should make galleries reconsider their security.

?No doubt there is a sense of embarrassment,? Mr. Ledford said. ?But I feel like this was our ?get out of jail free? card. We learned a valuable lesson without having to pay a heavy price.?

Sydney Ember contributed reporting.

I sense a book deal and a movie. At least, he's not a low-life street thug mugging innocent people.

Mark Lugo

Police report finding half-million dollars in stolen art, including a Picasso etching, in search of Hoboken apartment of suspect now facing charges of stealing Picasso sketch in California

Published: Friday, July 15, 2011, 3:01 AM
By Stephanie Musat/ The Jersey Journal

A Picasso etching worth $350,000 was one of seven pieces of stolen art found in the Hoboken apartment of a man who was charged in California last week with stealing a sketch by the Spanish genius, police said yesterday.

In the wake of his arrest in San Francisco, a search warrant was executed at the Washington Street apartment of Mark Lugo at about 2:20 a.m. Tuesday, police said. Inside, authorities found an etching that was identified by the gallery it was taken from as a 1933 piece titled "Sculpteur et Deux Tates (Sculptor and Two Heads)."

The Picasso, valued at $350,000, was one of seven pieces of stolen art found in Lugo's Hoboken apartment Tuesday morning when it was searched by the Hoboken Police Department, New York City police and the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office, according to police reports.
The pieces totaled approximately $500,000, according to police.

The seven pieces were taken from five Manhattan galleries and hotels, said New York City Police Lt. John Grimpel, including the Picasso, which was taken from the William Bennet Gallery in SoHo on June 27.

Last week, Lugo, 31, was busted at a hotel in Napa and accused of stealing Picasso's 1965 pencil-on-paper drawing "Tete de Femme" from the Weinstein gallery in San Francisco.

Lugo was booked in San Francisco on burglary, grand theft, and drug charges, and his bail was set at $5 million. He is scheduled to appear on those charges today in San Francisco.

Authorities there said the Picasso drawing, valued at $275,000, was recovered.

Besides expensive artwork, Lugo also apparently has a taste for fine wine.

He was charged in April with stealing roughly $6,000 worth of wine from Gary's Wine and Marketplace in Wayne, according to court documents.

Lugo was scheduled to appear in Wayne Township court on the wine theft charge on June 9, but he was a no-show and a warrant was issued for his arrest, court records state.

According to the statement given to the court by Robert L. Lesnick, the loss prevention manager of Gary's Wines, Lugo visited the store on April 25 and April 29 and swiped three bottles of 2006 Chateau Petrus Pomerol, a $2,000-a-bottle wine.