ART THIEF'S LAWYER: THEFTS RESULTED FROM 'PSYCHIATRIC EPISODE'

Psychiatric episode? That one didn’t work. But maybe his client can get a job as a flaky art critic when he gets out of the slammer.

HE HAD A TASTE FOR FINER THINGS, HE JUST DIDN’T LIKE TO PAY FOR THEM: PICASSO THIEF ADMITS STEALING MASTERPIECES WORTH $700,000

Mail Online
October 28, 2011

An art thief has pleaded guilty to walking out of a San Francisco art gallery with a pencil sketch by Pablo Picasso worth $280,000.

Workers at the Weinstein Gallery said Mark Lugo brazenly snatched the drawing, called Tete de Femme (Head of A Woman), from a wall of their gallery on July 5.

Lugo then walked down the street and got into a cab with the sketch under his arm.

But quick police work, video surveillance cameras and an alert taxi driver led to his arrest within 24 hours.

When investigators searched Lugo's apartment in New Jersey, they uncovered a treasure trove of stolen art worth around $430,000.

The other stolen works found included another Picasso painting worth $30,000, a Fernand Leger sketch valued at $350,000 and three bottles of Chateau Petrus Pomerol wine worth $5,900, San Francisco district attorney George Gascon said.

'This is a person who definitely had a taste for the finer things, and he didn't like to pay for them,' Mr Gascon said.

Lugo, 30, who investigators said worked at upmarket Manhattan restaurants and as a wine steward, admitted grand theft in the San Francisco case.

Under terms of a plea deal, prosecutors agreed to drop other charges, including burglary.

The deal allows for Lugo to be released on his sentencing date, November 21, after getting credit for time already served.

His lawyer, Douglas Horngrad, said Lugo would then be extradited to New York to face similar charges over art thefts there.

Mr Horngrad said the case had been wildly overblown.

'Now that all the hoopla has died down, he'll serve the time that reflects the conduct,' he said. 'Nobody was killed, nobody was assaulted; this was not the crime of the century.'

Lugo's initial bail of $5million was 'preposterous', he added. He also hinted that his client suffered from a mental illness.

'All these things that Mark is alleged to have taken were all taken within a 30-day period, with no behaviour like that before, and that suggests that there was some psychiatric episode,' the lawyer said.

Rowland Weinstein, owner of the San Francisco gallery, talked to reporters yesterday as he stood next to the Picasso and the FedEx box in which they found the sketch ready for shipping.

'I got to see first hand really extraordinary police work,' he said. 'This piece is a love affair of mine.'