Longtime sports fans may remember the names Yogi Berra, Christy Mathewson, Roger Maris, Tony Zale, Carmen Basilio, Ben Hogan and Art Wall Jr.
Art aficionados probably know plenty about Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock and Jasper Crospey.
Starting this week, a federal jury in Scranton will hear the famed athletes’ and artists’ names in a different context.
The jury will listen to testimony and view evidence against four Lackawanna County men accused of roles in a sprawling two-decade theft ring that targeted museums and other venues displaying rare sports memorabilia, art, vintage guns, jewelry and antiques.
The federal court trial of brothers Joseph Atsus, 50, of Roaring Brook, and Alfred Atsus, 48, of Covington; and Nicholas Dombek, 54, of Thornhurst; and Damien Boland, 48, of Moscow, is expected to last at least two weeks and maybe longer.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday.
Four ring members who pleaded guilty, also all from Lackawanna County, may testify. They are Ralph Parry, 46, of Covington; Frank Tassiello, 52, of Scranton; Dawn Trotta, 53, of Covington; and Trotta’s brother, Thomas Trotta, 49, of Moscow. All face sentencing after the trial.
Another accused ring member, Daryl Rinker, 51, of Thornhurst, died in April. Luzerne County Coroner Jill Matthews said Rinker, who had a history of hypertension, died of natural causes.
Other witnesses may include officials representing theft victims and an expert on the stolen loot’s value.
The ring operated from 1999 to 2019.
Many of the stolen goods are permanently gone because Dombek routinely removed gems from stolen rings, trophies and championship belts and melted down the remnants, according to the indictment.
Thomas Trotta, Dombek and Boland – sometimes in pairs, sometimes all three – traveled to New York City and sold the gems and melted gold or other metals for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, but got less money as time went on, according to the federal indictment charging Dombek, the Atsuses and Boland.
The melted-down goods included Berra’s World Series rings, other championship rings and most valuable player plaques, Basilio’s and Zale’s boxing championship belts, Honesdale native Wall’s golf tournament trophies, golfer Hogan’s Hickok athlete-of-the-year belt and Maris’s MVP trophy and Hickok belt.
Other stolen memorabilia or goods remain missing like baseball Hall of Famer Mathewson’s 1906 jersey and two player contracts, stolen from Keystone College in LaPlume in Lackawanna County in 1999.
“To my knowledge, nothing has been recovered and there’s no new information as to where those items may be,” said Terry Wise, Keystone’s former athletic director who oversaw the Mathewson memorabilia in an email.
Thomas Trotta, the ring leader, who has already served prison time on state charges related to similar thefts, has cooperated with law enforcement investigating the case for years and may serve as a star witness for Assistant U.S. Attorney James Buchanan.
Before most thefts, Trotta and other ring members visited targets to learn locations of valuables, exits and entrances and gauge the gear needed to accomplish the theft.
Often, Trotta electronically recorded his surroundings and studied the recordings to prepare, according to the indictment. Sometimes, he took along a niece or nephew to divert suspicion as he recorded, but also guided them to doors and displays he wanted to study later, he told the CBS TV news magazine, “60 Minutes,” last year.
“I have a dorky look to me,” he told “60 Minutes” reporter Jon Wertheim. “I notice I don’t look like a criminal at all.”
Except for one time, Trotta carried out the actual thefts alone. He broke into buildings and smashed display cases using a center-punch tool, an axe or an angle grinder, according to the indictment.
“How we justified it is, hey, nobody's getting hurt,” Trotta told “60 Minutes.” “But I never looked at it like, sitting in jail 51 months, emotionally, I destroyed people. I know this now. I do regret hurting everybody I stole anything from.”
Trotta said he tried on Yogi Berra’s World Series rings after they were stolen and Mathewson’s jersey before he stole it by asking permission.
“The Yogi Berra family, like what everything he accomplished in life, he didn't need someone like me to do what I did,” Trotta said. “But it can't take away what he did. He's the hero. I'm not. I'm not."
Joseph Atsus or Boland usually drove Trotta to the museums, according to the indictment. Before Trotta stole Wall’s trophies from the Scranton Country Club, Joseph Atsus posed as a prospective member to scope out the club, according to the indictment.
The Atsuses owned a Union, New Jersey home where they hid the Mathewson memorabilia and Warhol’s “Le Grand Passion” and Pollock’s “Springs Winter,” both stolen in 2015 from the Everhart Museum in Scranton.
“No, we haven't recovered the stolen Pollock or Warhol and we've had no update from federal prosecutors yet,” Everhart CEO Tim Holmes said in an email. “We hope to find out more at the trial.”
“No, we haven't recovered the stolen Pollock or Warhol and we've had no update from federal prosecutors yet,” Everhart CEO Tim Holmes said in an email. “We hope to find out more at the trial.”
The indictment says Alfred Atsus paid Boland $5,000 for his share of the future sale of the Everhart paintings and Trotta $6,000 for an 1836 revolver stolen in 2006 from the Space Farms Zoo and Museum in Wantage, New Jersey.
Alfred Atsus also let Trotta use his rental account for rent a torch to melt down trophies stolen in 2012 from the Harness Racing Museum and Hall of Fame in Goshen, New York.
They split up loot mainly at either Dombek’s home, Boland’s Scranton tavern, known as Collier’s Bar, or Dawn Trotta’s home.
Boland regularly helped Trotta and Joseph Atsus formulate break-in plans, including visiting sites with them. He sometimes drove Trotta to targets. He kept an 1857 revolver stolen from Space Farms as his share. He also went inside Ringwood Manor in Ringwood, New Jersey, in 2011 and helped Trotta steal artist Jasper Crospey’s “Upper Hudson” painting, according to the indictment.
Dombek burned the painting when he feared apprehension, the indictment says.
One place Boland drove Trotta was the Lackawanna Historical Society in Scranton where Trotta pilfered an early 1900s Tiffany lamp. They sold it to someone named “King Joe” in New York City for $6,300, according to the indictment.
