Wearing a heavy coat, gloves, and a wool cap, Beckman signed the visitors log. Spencer assembled a small wardrobe of fake beards, gray wigs, and costume glue. Meanwhile, Eric lined up the G.T.A.V. When the four boys were arrested the news was met with disbelief, as none of them had been in any serious trouble before. Spencer, meanwhile, was accepted to Transylvania on an arts scholarship, his sights firmly set on a career in graphic design. Boom. The actor thanked his fans for all their kind words. He covered his tracks by using public phones and campus computers. It Was Catastrophic: Inside Prince Andrews Misguided Bid to Explain Away Epstein, In the wake of Jeffrey Epsteins arrest and apparent suicide, Prince Andrew moved from the fringe of a swirling underage-sex scandal toward its white-hot center. The first call went out to the National Crime Information Center, alerting law enforcement to be on the lookout for a gray minivan with temporary plates, the description of a vehicle seen screeching away from the library. 1.7K Followers. Spencer Reinhard, Warren Lipka, Eric Borsuk and Charles Allen II were all between the ages of 19 and 20 at the time of the robbery. For example, if you want to go on a vacation, you should first decide where you are going and how much money you have . The fourth, Charles Chas Allen II, had been transferred to a federal medical center in Lexington.) In the weeks following the book heist, law enforcement followed leads at Transy and reviewed countless hours of security footage from the U.K. computer lab, to which a police technician had traced the e-mail from Walter Beckman to Gooch. And the woman there says, We had a set just like this that we sold four years ago for like $12 million. It could have been eight. I was kind of skeptical, continues Spencer, but the way I rationalized it was: its the biggest auction house. onto nearby Fourth Street and careened through traffic before stopping a mile farther on, in front of a predominantly black housing project. They stopped talking entirely and disbanded. The take could be more than $5 million. The meeting initially hit a snag when Barry was put off by the boys' youth. The severity of the requested sentences was predicated on the dual propositions that, although the Audubon volumes had never been physically removed from the library, according to the letter of the law they were nonetheless stolenincreasing the monetary value of the crimeand that the Black Cobra Stun Pen used to subdue B. J. Gooch not only inflicted physical harm but was in actuality a dangerous weapon. Worse still for the defendants, B. J. Goochs ordeal had become a cause clbre among librarians, many of whom wrote letters to the judge arguing against leniency. . Chas not only lived in the yellow bungalow but also was a part owner of it with his father, a prominent Lexington real-estate investor. He also didn't have photos, photocopies, documentation, or even the slightest ability to intelligently discuss the books. All these girls I could draw better than when I was in sixth grade.. According to the revised plan, they would ditch the old-man disguises and only Warren and Eric would enter the library. With each taking one end of the Audubons, they made their way to the staff-only elevator. What they would tell me, then, is their version of eventsand the only complete account of the planning, execution, and aftermath of the heist. She offered to take his place. I was expecting to play soccer quite a lot, but the coach was a completely different person once I got on the team, he tells me. It was only a tennis final, Eric says, but that final that day was actually harder than I thought it was going to be. It was only a tennis final, Eric says, but that final that day was actually harder than I thought it was going to be. 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. The plan will continue to grow and mature as the leader goes forward. Barry described himself as an older man with a long ponytail and said he'd be wearing a green scarf. The contact, who identified himself only as Barry, stipulated that Warren had to bring $500 in good-faith money. And I pledged a fraternity, but I really didn't get into that too much. We'll all be still young, Warren says. He loved that it had been made the screen saver on the F.B.I. Once I was off of probation, I was able to travel and eventually made a trip to Colombia where I painted my first large-scale mural and met my wife Marcela. A uniformed doorman cheerily welcomed both boys into the lobby, where they informed reception that they were there for Mr. Walter Beckman's appointment with Thomas Leckey, Christie's rare-book specialist. Eric rented a proper bedroom upstairs, while Spencer moved back into the dorms at Transylvania. Each has a different style of facial hairmuttonchops (Lipka), a Fu Manchu (Borsuk), a Tom Selleck (Reinhard)which Lipka informs me they had carefully trimmed for my visit. into a perfect parking space and watched as Eric and Warren entered the library. So we go back down to the bottom floor just to get away from her. I guess when we did that she went upstairs to check on B.J.. The phone number was registered to a Gary Reinhard of Lexington, Kentucky. Because of the expense, only Warren made the trip, touching down at Amsterdams Schiphol Airport on a Saturday morning in early March 2004. I've met with them, Eric continues. Both boys were spitting images of Mr. Stephens and Mr. Williams. The set was one of fewer than 200 produced. Limited means forced my creativity into new areas. Built over old tobacco fields in the 80s, they feature ponds with fountains, cookie-cutter brick Colonial houses, street names like Ironbridge Drive and Turnberry Lane, and regulations authorizing penalties for unkempt yards and tacky lawn Santas. When she asked for contact information, Spencer gave her his cell-phone number. If we go in there theyre not going to suspect that we stole these. What becomes apparent, as first faintly and then irreversibly, is the painting as a negative apotheosis of color and form, which Reinhardt defended himself against. 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. 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. Among the prisoners are three of the four unlikely masterminds behind the Transy Book Heist: Warren Lipka, Spencer Reinhard, and Eric Borsuk. By early November the boys were selling fake IDs at a hundred dollars apiece, and had apparently branched out into more lucrative identity manipulations. Yet he did allow and encourage the interpretation of his art as an abrogation of space and time and, above all, history. 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?. Because no one would go to Christies with stolen books to get them appraisedthats 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. They said that this set, Birds of America, sold for $12 million. I said, Twelve million dollars, just sitting there? With a long, thin face and bleached-blond hair and sideburns, he appeared younger than Gooch had expected. When Warren arrived, he saw a man fitting that description seated with three other men. The meeting lasted no more than 15 minutes, but still, it was a turning point because the men explained to Warren a crucial step of selling rare books, stolen or otherwise: appraisal by a legitimate auction house. Even if we wanted to, they won't let us. Spencer Reinhard and Warren Lipka had grown up together in adjacent subdivisions on Lexington's south sidefully planned residential tracts wedged in between the city and the gradually receding horse country that rings it. They also did considerable research on the Internet, using such key terms as auction house appraisals, stun guns, and Swiss bank accounts. For inspiration, they watched heist movies like Oceans 11 and Snatch. Waiting for the law to snatch them was nerve-racking, but they went on with their lives as if nothing had been amiss. Warren was like, Ive talked to these guys. Spencer gives me 500 bucks, in my pocket. Warren called me one night and he's like, We need to get together. Even if we wanted to, they wont let us. I never intended to paint them and I resisted the idea but in the end I couldnt help but indulge the irony. For one, its cheaper, and this allowed me to work less and spend more time with my young daughter. Cant have any of this documented. His clumsy attempt to clear his name, in a no-holds-barred interview with BBC, Gabby Petitos Life WithAnd Death ByBrian Laundrie. The two men followed the librarian into the Rare Book Room, and John closed the door behind them. I still feel like I have a long way to go to reach my full potential, and I think Jamaica will be an integral step in that direction., American visual artist Spencer Reinhard, an artist-in-residence at Blue Macaw in Boscobel, St. Mary, The ornithologist in Spencer Reinhard takes gaze. We can never go back if we wanted toI would rather have not been busted, but all I can say is it feels right in here, and before, in college, it just never did., I remember talking to Eric and Warren one day and I was like, So what, theyre going to put us in jail, says Spencer. The books were much heavier than the boys had projected, and the pair could handle only three at a time. Inside were the books, wrapped in sheets and pillowcases. He then explains: "And as for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared that he would overburden them by transgression and disbelief. Warren had been convinced after spotting a suspicious man loitering near the yellow bungalowwhen he stepped outside, the man disappeared into an unmarked white van with tinted windows and sped off. Mass Market Paperback. To have time to properly apply the disguises, he tried to reschedule his art-history final for later in the day on the 16th, but was unsuccessful. Far from being social outcasts, they had been popular athletes, and two were on some form of college scholarship. See, we have no choice now but to create something new, someplace else. Not what I expected, not what I wanted it to be, Warren says. Seeing something in the wayward Warren, the preppy grifter pitched him the idea of selling fake Kentucky drivers licenses in the U.K. dorms. Theyre one of Hollywoods brightest starsand most troubled actors. The thieves left no fingerprints behind, and there were almost no witnesses. detective says. Bam. Writing from walter.beckman@yahoo.com, Warren sent B. J. Gooch an e-mail confirming Beckmans December 16 appointment at the Rare Book Room to view the Audubons and a few other items. This is my first time on the island, any island for that matter, he said. received two additional pieces of evidence from Christie's: security-camera footage of the meeting and a cell-phone number the men had left behind. I spent two years in FCI Ashland before being transferred to Fort Dix, New Jersey. 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. In their senior year the two became local celebrities after a dramatic photo appeared in the Lexington Herald-Leader showing Lexington Catholic star goalkeeper Lipka and Tates Creek forward Reinhard battling midair during a playoff game. Phase 1 ends when the G.T.A.V. After several phone calls Warren managed to arrange a meeting in New York. The Kentucky Theatre On the second-floor landing, Chas, in high-end flannel pajamas and thinking they were being robbed, pulled out a derringer, only to drop the weapon at the last moment. But even at that point, it became apparent that Warren and Spencer wouldn't be able to pull it off alone. Still shaken from her ordeal, Gooch, in her 50s, told police that shortly after entering the Rare Book Room with the two men she had been struck on the arm with a Taserlike weapon, her hands and feet were bound with zip ties, and a wool cap was pulled over her eyes. 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