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Alleged
mobster to ask judge to toss charges linked to museum heist
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[November 10, 2015]
MILFORD, Conn. (Reuters) - Lawyers
for an accused Connecticut mobster on Tuesday will ask a judge to
dismiss gun charges against him, contending they are an effort by
federal agents to make him talk about the biggest art heist in U.S.
history, a crime they say he knows nothing about.
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 Robert Gentile, 79, was arrested in April and charged with
illegally selling a gun to an informant posing as a convicted
killer.
But his attorney, Ryan McGuigan, contends the arrest was a ruse, the
second attempt by U.S. federal agents to force Gentile to divulge
the whereabouts of some $500 million in artwork stolen from Boston's
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum a quarter-century ago.
That theft, in which men dressed as Boston police officers stole 13
pieces of art, including works by Rembrandt and Vermeer, stands as
one of the longest unsolved mysteries in Boston criminal history.
 None of the missing art has been recovered, but a 2012 search of
Gentile's home turned up a handwritten list of the stolen art
pieces, their estimated value on the black market and police
uniforms, according to court papers.
McGuigan contended that the April arrest marked the second time that
Gentile has faced prosecution as a result of a federal sting
operation.
"The government's serial efforts to leverage Mr. Gentile's
cooperation in this manner constitutes improper coercion such that
it constitutes outrageous government misconduct," McGuigan wrote.
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Gentile has pleaded not guilty to the firearms charges.
The Boston office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in August
released surveillance video taken the night before the heist showing
a security guard admitting a man into the Gardner museum, saying it
hoped the images would generate new leads.
(Reporting by Richard Weizel; writing by Scott Malone, editing by G
Crosse)
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