After a brief discussion they chose Chas Allen, a handsome, clean-cut U.K. business major who had started the lawn-care company with Eric the previous summer. So we ate at Pazzos pizza pub. Spencer gives me 500 bucks, in my pocket. I'm not going to lie. I see Warren and Eric bust out of the back door, Spencer says, describing what he saw unfold from his lookout position. In the fall of 2004, Warren Lipka moved into the unfinished basement. Warren called me one night and hes like, We need to get together. On the morning of December 17, 2004, Betty Jean Gooch, a librarian in the Special Collections Library at Transylvania University, in Lexington, Kentucky, was preparing for her 11 o'clock appointment with Walter Beckman, a man she had never met. detective says. Eric had propped the folios on the steps with his foot when the librarian appeared at the top of the stairs, beside herself with rage after finding Gooch hog-tied in the Rare Book Room. The boys readily agreed, and she escorted them through the offices to a small conference room. We figured the more obvious [we were], the less likely [we would be suspected]., As it was already nearing the end of the school year, and there was a lot of planning yet to be done, they agreed to postpone the theft until at least the fall. As she was heading toward a display case, Gooch felt a tingling on her right arm and collapsed to the floor. Barry described himself as an older man with a long ponytail and said he'd be wearing a green scarf. Warren introduced himself as Mr. Williams. They simply ignored him, and the four returned to Lexington. He was just so unbearable. They got security around that? Nonchalantly, very nonchalantly, I mean, just kind of shooting it between us. Warren went up to the third floor to meet Gooch, while Eric waited downstairs for him to call. ). As they took their seats in the conference room, Warren explained that he and Mr. Stephens are the sole representatives of Walter Beckman, whom he described as a very private individual from Boston who had recently inherited several valuable rare books and manuscripts. Abstraction allows me to explore multiple paths of my creative desire. The painting is a kaleidoscope of images, including what appears to be a computer, a cell phone, a bong, the Transylvania library, and loose sheets of notepaper, floating above a desiccated. 1.7K Followers. Ink transfer refers to my unique process of removing the ink from magazine pages and suspending it in layers of gel medium. In exchange, Barry slipped him an e-mail address with instructions to sign off any communication with the name Terry. Now the hard partwe have to steal them. I was nervous. Jean Smarts Career Timeline: I Dont Take Any of It for Granted, Donald Trump Calls E. Jean Carroll Rape Lawsuit a Hoax And A Lie; Judge Rules Suit Can Proceed, The former president continues to deny knowing the writer, calling her mentally sick., James Marsden Is Still Hoping for a Happy Ending for Canceled, Jeremy Renner Shares Selfie from Hospital Bed After Snow Plow Accident. Buried in the files was a series of e-mails to Christie's in New York. 2023 Cond Nast. Its great to be the inspiration for this project., Two weeks into his stay, Reinhard, an ardent ornithologist, whose works draw inspiration from late Dutch-American abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning, feels that his greatest artistic asset is his versatility. During their sentencing hearing, in December 2005, the federal prosecutor asked for 11 to 14 years each for Eric, Chas, and Spencer, and 14 to 17 years for Warren, deeming him the leader, organizer, and recruiter. Again, Warren thought otherwise. This is the story you didnt get from the film. Us three, we were much thicker than he was.) And what Chas likely didn't know was that, for Warren, Eric, and Spencer, the actual appraisal and sale of the stolen books had become irrelevant to the mission. Across town at U.K., in a towering cinder-block dorm, Warren's world was spinning apart at a much faster clip. Among the prisoners are three of the four unlikely masterminds behind the Transy Book Heist: Warren Lipka, Spencer Reinhard, and Eric Borsuk. They checked into the Hilton Hotel in Midtown, Warren signing in under the nom de guerre Harry Ballsania name backed up with one of their fake Kentucky drivers licensesand paying in cash. They checked into the Hilton Hotel in Midtown, Warren signing in under the nom de guerre Harry Ballsania name backed up with one of their fake Kentucky driver's licensesand paying in cash. I wouldnt trade it for anything., Looking ahead, the artist divulged that he is due to have a show next year in Los Angeles and has much to produce. Cant have any of this documented. [Beckman] said, B.J., a nickname her friends and colleagues used for her, she told officers. Reinhard mentioned a collection of lightly guarded rare books and art at the university library, and the two, while watching Hollywood heist movies, started kicking around the idea of stealing from the $20 million collection. Late one Thursday afternoon in mid-February, the two friends bought a bag of weed and drove the 700 miles to Manhattan in Spencers Acura Legend. Writing from walter.beckman@yahoo.com, Warren sent B. J. Gooch an e-mail confirming Beckman's December 16 appointment at the Rare Book Room to view the Audubons and a few other items. I love that my kids will grow up seeing both worlds and experiencing both cultures. She agreed. Because no one would go to Christie's with stolen books to get them appraisedthat's how we did a lot of stuff, like, we would smoke weed directly under the [security] camera on the Transy campus, park a car right underneath it and then smoke for like an hour. I think we all knew that we wanted something different, and we had to break away from where we were living. I can't really get into too much specifics, Eric says, but we were doing all kinds of little scams: making fake IDs, making little things here and there. Afterward, he was to call Eric up to haul the books in two trips to the G.T.A.V., which was to be driven by Chas. By five P.M., Warrenas Beckmanwas back on the phone with Gooch explaining that he had missed his appointment because he had been out of town on business. Frightened and alone in an unfriendly neighborhood and weighed down with priceless books, Warren and Eric barreled down the street, frantically trying to hail a police cruiser to rescue them. (Big Warren declined to comment on the gambling accusations at the time.) Eric couldn't get hold of his friend's car, leaving Chas to borrow a Dodge Caravan his mother was fortuitously selling the next day, the boys say. and Lexington police put the pair under surveillance. a plan to fail spencer reinhard painting Bid on Art by Today's Leading Artists. Photographed by Nan Goldin at the tender age of 19, just about to release his Tony Richardson film. When summer break began, the three returned home to the subdivisions of South Lexington. He was whisked into a squad car. Ive met with them, Eric continues. The press invariably described them as good boys from good familiesupper-middle-class kids afforded every opportunity, the ones with the most to lose. The next morning, all nerves, he left for the meeting site, a caf within walking distance. Just days before their arrests the three even took in a movie: Ocean's 12. We had a few pitchers, feeling each other out. The actor thanked his fans for all their kind words. They had reserved a room in the same Midtown Hilton that Spencer and Warren had stayed in nearly a year earlier. from an unsuspecting friend and got his hands on zip ties, a wool cap, electrician's tape, and bedsheets. It was just funny because weve been in a lot of places that theyve been, Eric says. It was very punishing, that first couple of months in college. Im expecting when I get up there its going to be taken care of and Im just going to start lifting books. All rights reserved. Barry described himself as an older man with a long ponytail and said hed be wearing a green scarf. Over the phone and by e-mail, Beckman had asked to view, among other items, a first edition of Charles Darwins On the Origin of Species and four double-size folios of John James Audubons Birds of America. Gooch agreed to reschedule for 11 the next morning. received two additional pieces of evidence from Christies: security-camera footage of the meeting and a cell-phone number the men had left behind. He took a cab to Dam Square, an old hippie hangout in the center of the city he had read about on the Internet. Starting with a 1970s Pierre Cardin canary-yellow blazer that had belonged to his grandfather, he wore a dress shirt with an ostentatiously large collar and a gold silk scarf. When Warren arrived, he saw a man fitting that description seated with three other men. In fact, they all tell me that as the planning picked up in the months before the heist, the three of them came to believe that it was their best and perhaps last chance to create a viable life for themselves after college. Donald Trump to Evangelicals: You Cant Break Up With Me Because Im Breaking Up With You First, Reality Is Submerged in Fantasy: The Villages Is a Boomers UtopiaAnd Demographic Time Bomb. It immediately had kind of sparked my imagination, like a fantasy., O.K., so were sitting in the car, smoking weed, Warren recalls, and then Spencer said, I just took a tour in that library, and theres shit sitting there you wouldnt believe. He topped off his new living quarters with the last of his worldly belongings: a large-screen television, a DVD player, and a Sony PlayStation. They were skeptical, Warren recalls. Warren made an appraisal appointment at Christies in New York for Walter Beckman, a pseudonym inspired by the soccer star David Beckham. Warren and Eric got out of the G.T.A.V. And that's when I came up. I took my zip ties and I put them around her feet and put them around her arms. It was about at that point that Gooch remembers Warren saying, Quit struggling, B.J., or do you want to feel more pain?. As a precautionary measure, they left the books in the car. Only by committing a felony could they ensure that they would never end up living back in the sterile, suburban world of the subdivisions. They tried to come up with some link the cops could make between them and the theft, but they couldn't. Eric dropped the books, and he and Warren made a run for it. We will be stronger, better, wiser for going through this together, the three of us. (Because Spencer was a Transy student, he risked being recognized in the library.) Back at Warrens that afternoon, the boys were transfixed by local coverage of the Transy Book Heist.. 's all-time most significant art-theft cases. Calculated, mathematical, loose, painterly, spontaneous, 2021 Spencer Reinhard all rights reserved, Please send me the price list, I am interested in purchasing an original Reinhard. By far the most common theory around town was that the heist had been just a frat prank that spun way out of control. When the four boys were arrested the news was met with disbelief, as none of them had been in any serious trouble before. When the four boys were arrested the news was met with disbelief, as none of them had been in any serious trouble before. agent discovered the stolen books, all undamaged, as well as the five-page typed plan for the heist, an accounting ledger, wigs, instructions for opening a Swiss bank account, and stun guns, which had apparently arrived after the robbery. After a short wait, a young Christie's employee, Melanie Halloran, came out to apologize, as Mr. Leckey, due to an impending public auction, would be unable to see them. into a perfect parking space and watched as Eric and Warren entered the library. It immediately had kind of sparked my imagination, like a fantasy., O.K., so we're sitting in the car, smoking weed, Warren recalls, and then Spencer said, I just took a tour in that library, and there's shit sitting there you wouldn't believe. 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