Mystery art dealer helped crack theft case

Who is he? Who is the mystery man who investigators say played a critical role in breaking the case of the theft of more than $500,000 in artwork and other valuables from unoccupied East End homes during the winter?

He’s a North Fork art dealer, said District Attorney Tom Spota, who declined to give the man’s name. Mr. Spota said the art dealer was contacted four times — in December, January and twice in April — by Angel Giovanni Palencia, 24, of Medford, trying to sell the stolen art.

Mr. Palencia was indicted Friday on felony burglary and grand larceny charges connected to a string of art thefts in Southold, Shelter Island, Southampton and East Hampton. He is being held on $500,000 bail and is scheduled to return to court on May 13.

The North Fork dealer grew suspicious, and after he learned through a fellow dealer that some of the art was reported stolen, he contacted the Southold Town Police.

On Wednesday, April 6, the day after the last meeting between the two men, the town police arrested Mr. Palencia after recording a conversation between him and the art dealer, the district attorney said during a Friday morning press conference at the County Criminal Court Building in Riverside.

When Mr. Palencia first approached the dealer in December he offered to sell a number of paintings, but the dealer declined, according to prosecutors.

In January Mr. Palencia is alleged to have approached the man again, but with new art works. Included in that group was a large canvas of a woman sitting on a chair, painted by Daniel Macnee, a 19th century Scottish painter. Police said that painting, valued at $4,000, and a companion work, detectives later learned had been taken from a home on Soundview Avenue in Southold.

The dealer paid Mr. Palencia $100 as security and held the paintings over night so he could research them, prosecutors said.

Not wanting the large painting, the dealer said he contacted Mr. Palencia the next day to have the work picked up. In his statement to police, the dealer said Mr. Palencia had only $90 of the $100 security when he returned and offered to make up the difference by giving the dealer a peacock lamp, also later found to be taken from a Soundview Avenue home in Southold. Unaware that it was stolen, the dealer later sold it at a church fair, police said.

On April 5 Mr. Palencia contacted the dealer again, this time offering to sell five pieces. Again, the dealer held them overnight to conduct research. He then discovered that two of the paintings were reported taken in an East Hampton burglary, police said. He contacted the Southold Police, who suggested he set up a meeting with the man he knew as “Jose” to purchase the works.

The dealer said that at about 4:30 p.m. on the 6th “I received a phone call from ‘Jose,’ the guy who dropped off the artwork to me at my house. We agreed that I would buy the artwork from him and he told me that he would meet me at the Handy Pantry store in Mattituck.”

The dealer said “Jose,” who was Mr. Palencia, approached him at about 4:45 that afternoon in the store parking lot.

“I positively identified him as the person who had dropped off the artwork to me, and on two other occasions,” he said.

Police then took Mr. Palencia into custody.

He is alleged to have also taken a painting and a silver tea set from the Soundview Avenue home, and a painting and a stamp collection from a Rocky Point Road residence on Shelter Island.

The defendant had worked as a carpenter in the Soundview Avenue home and is believed to have entered through an unlocked back window, according to the district attorney. The home’s alarm system was not on at the time.

Flanked by samples of the stolen art recovered by investigators and joined by area law enforcement officers, the DA said Mr. Palencia had admitted to the thefts, but said he was working on his own. Police think otherwise.

“Nobody believes that this defendant was working by himself,” said Mr. Spota. “He certainly wasn’t running around to houses in East Hampton and looking in windows.”

Police said there’s no evidence of forced entry at any of the burglarized homes and most property owners said the windows were locked and the alarms set.

The DA offered no explanation as to how Mr. Palencia might have gained access to the homes.

Mr. Spota stopped short of describing the crimes as part of an organized art theft ring. He did say, “The police are looking at a number of individuals they believe may have participated.”

Mr. Palencia is accused of taking 30 works of art and other valuables worth between $550,000 and $600,000 during January and February.

The defendant is no stranger to the East End, the DA added. He’s worked as a carpenter on Shelter Island and for a painting contractor on the North Fork. While working on Shelter Island, he had knowledge of an extra house key kept outside which “he found to be very handy.”

Southold police said Mr. Palencia, an undocumented worker, was arrested on a DWI charge in Southold several years ago.

Investigators said some of the stolen artwork is still missing, but they’ve also recovered pieces that had not been reported stolen, including a mirror, a print and an oil painting the department has since learned were taken from a house on Nassau Point in Cutchogue.

Southold Police Chief Ty Cochran said it’s likely other thefts will be uncovered after the return of owners to vacation homes unoccupied over the winter.

The chief doesn’t believe any particular artworks were targeted.

“I don’t think he knew enough about art to know if he took a valuable piece,” he said. “I think he thought it was valuable. Was he an art critic? No.”

A 30-year member of the Southold force, the chief said the only similar crime he can recall was an antiques theft ring that hit Southold, Riverhead and Southampton in the mid to late 1990s.

In this case police received a lucky break through the art dealer’s assistance and followed up with what the chief called “good, old-fashioned police work. This guy was beating us up a little bit, particularly on the south side. You do have bragging rights when your department picks up on the lead and I enjoy that once in awhile.”