The 2005 theft of two paintings from the Everhart Museum was planned.
Until it wasn’t.
Thomas Trotta, the admitted leader of a two-decade theft ring that looted museums and other venues, testified Monday he and four accused ring members on trial in federal court planned the break-in for years.
In repeated visits to the museum, they recorded videos of the paintings, museum security measures and entrances, potential escapes and other features that might help them pull it off.
“It was a constant thing to go up there,” Trotta, 49, testified.
They watched and studied the videos dozens of times, but decided to carry out the theft on impulse in the early morning hours of Nov. 18, 2005.
Trotta testified on day nine of the trial of his childhood friends, Damien Boland, Nicholas Dombek and brothers Joseph and Alfred Atsus.
They originally planned to steal “Pink Shrimp,” a 1921 painting by Henri Matisse, Trotta testified, but the museum sold that for about $900,000.
On one Everhart visit, a security guard told him the Matisse wasn’t the most valuable painting there, he testified.
So, they turned their attention to “Le Grand Passion” by Andy Warhol, the famed pop art painter, and “Springs Winter,” purportedly by Jackson Pollock, the renowned abstract expressionist painter.
Each hung next to the other on free-standing walls in a second-floor gallery.
Trotta said he planned the theft of both so thoroughly he could get through the museum in the dark.
What he hadn’t figured out was when to do it.
The night of the theft, Trotta said he, Boland and Joe Atsus sat inside the former Whistles Pub & Eatery on Franklin Avenue in Scranton and talked about their plans.
Suddenly, a fight broke out among other patrons.
It seemed like “every cop in Scranton” showed up at Whistles, Trotta testified.
“I look at Dame, he looks at me,” he said, using a shortened version of Boland’s first name.
Atsus suggested it might be a good time to hit the museum with all the police at Whistles, Trotta said.
They left and took the conversation to another bar, The Bog, a few blocks away on Adams Avenue in downtown Scranton.
“Joe’s kind of dogging me,” Trotta testified, meaning Atsus was urging him to rip off the Everhart right away.
Finally, they decided, “Let’s do it.”
“Boland drove my pickup truck,” Trotta said. “Joe’s in the back seat.”
Trotta: They didn't bring tools
They arrived at the museum not long after 2 a.m., according to previous testimony. They worked out where Boland would pick him up after the theft.
Boland parked on a nearby street and waited there with Atsus, Trotta said. They agreed Boland would blow the truck horn if they saw police lights.
“If he hits the horn, I’m not going back to the truck, I’m going in the woods (behind the museum),” he said.
One major thing they didn't plan? Because the decision to break in was so impromptu, they hadn’t brought any tools, Trotta said.
They caught one break. On that night a tent covered the rear entrance because the museum “had some gala,” Trotta said.
He said he tried to “donkey kick” the rear entrance door, but that didn’t work.
Outside, though, he found a ladder, dragged it to the entrance and bludgeoned the door window until it smashed. He dragged the ladder inside and repeated the motion to an interior door.
Inside, it was “pitch black,” he said.
It didn’t matter. He had visited so often he knew exactly where to go. He ran upstairs, grabbed the paintings and ran back to the truck long before police arrived, he said.
Atsus showed his delight.
“Joe was like, ‘We’re rich,’” Trotta testified.
'We were very paranoid'
They drove to Trotta’s sister Dawn’s home in Lackawanna County’s North Pocono region.
They placed the framed paintings along a basement wall.
“Now we’re just staring at them,” Trotta testified.
Trotta said he recorded a video of the paintings leaning against the wall. The video, played in court two weeks ago, rolled again Monday.
The paintings didn’t remain at Dawn Trotta’s house.
“They bounced around,” Trotta testified.
Each time someone in the group spotted a police car in the neighborhood, even if only on routine patrol, they moved the paintings.
“To Damien’s, to Al’s, to Joe’s, back to Damien’s,” Trotta said. “We were very paranoid.”
Finally, they decided to move them to a home the Atsus brothers own in Union, New Jersey, along with loot from a theft at Keystone College, the one that kicked off their two-decade spree.
In that theft, Aug. 13, 1999, Trotta said he stole a 1906 baseball jersey worn by Hall of Fame pitcher Christy Mathewson and two Mathewson player contracts. Mathewson attended Keystone when he was in high school.
Payphone call to Pollock's owner
At one point, Trotta said they tried to collect a reward offered for one painting’s return. They learned about the reward from a newspaper article.
Trotta said he called the Pollock’s owner from a payphone at a gas station near the Atsuses’ Union, New Jersey home.
He did not name the painting owner, but artist Arthur Byron Phillips owned the Pollock, whose authenticity remains in question.
Trotta said he even mentioned a stamp on the back of the painting’s frame to convince the owner he knew where it was. Only the owner would know about the stamp, which said, “Parsons Gallery.”
The gallery was esteemed in New York art circles.
Their attempt didn’t work. They didn’t collect the reward.
They stayed overnight at the Atsus home. Before driving home the day after the phone call, they drove by to see the pa phone.
It was gone and only police tape remained.
They assumed police confiscated it, he said.
That scared Boland, who feared getting caught, Trotta testified. To mollify him, they bought out his share of any future proceeds of the sale of the paintings.
Alfred Atsus paid Boland $5,000 for his share, according to the indictment of the four men.
Even “pennies on the dollar would be worth 100 grand,” Trotta testified.
The museum collected about $100,000 in insurance money over the theft of the Warhol because it owned that, according to early testimony.
'This stuff is worth a fortune'
Trotta also detailed the Keystone theft.
He was 24 at the time. His mother worried he was hanging out with the wrong crowd. So she arranged for three friends to take him to Keystone for a Mathewson celebration that included a one-act play.
“They’re actually very honest guys,” he said.
After the play, one of the men wanted to see the jersey, on display in a glass case. A woman pulled it out and then walked away.
One of the men whispered to Trotta, “This stuff is worth a fortune,” he testified.
When he got home, he called Joe Atsus and told him, “We’ve got something to do.”
Atsus drove them back to Keystone. Using brick-sized walkie-talkies, they planned primary and secondary post-theft pickup points.
He instructed Atsus never to stay parked for too long because he worried the car would attract attention in a rural area.
“The driver has to be mobile,” he said.
Trotta said he went inside, broke the case and stole the jersey and contracts. Atsus drove them back to Trotta’s parents’ home in Madisonville, Trotta said.
The next day, police interviewed people who attended the one-act play including Trotta. Because the play was invitation-only, the police had a list, according to a state trooper’s testimony.
Assistant U.S. Attorney James Buchanan asked Trotta if he told police about the theft.
“Absolutely not,” Trotta testified. “We just burglarized some very pricey stuff. I wasn’t planning on going to jail the next day.”
Focus on New Jersey safe
The last time Trotta saw the paintings and jersey was in 2017 during a visit to the Union, New Jersey Atsus home to mow the lawn, he said.
The paintings were in cardboard boxes similar to the kind used to move large mirrors and off the ground to prevent their getting wet, he said.
Two years later, after beginning to cooperate with police, Trotta said he went to the home to look for the paintings and Mathewson memorabilia. A state trooper’s earlier testimony said he went there after promising to find the stuff.
He went through the home thoroughly and — according to one defense lawyer’s opening statement — severely damaged it, including during efforts to drag the safe out of the basement.
“My assumption was everything was in that safe,” Trotta testified.
'Are you a thief?'
During opening statements, defense lawyers made it clear they intend to portray Trotta as a “professional liar.”
At the outset of Trotta’s testimony, Buchanan tried to get ahead of his witness’ shady background.
He asked Trotta where he lives.
“Lackawanna County Prison,” replied Trotta, who came to court in leg shackles and a forest-green prison jumpsuit.
He lives there because he violated the terms of his release from federal custody for the thefts, he said.
“Are you a thief?” Buchanan asked.
“Yes I am,” Trotta replied.
“Are you a burglar?” Buchanan asked.
“Yes I am,” Trotta replied.
“Do you steal things?” the prosecutor asked.
“That’s what I do,” Trotta said.
After Buchanan walked him through a long list of his burglaries and the loot he stole, Trotta acknowledged he all the thefts.
“Did you steal these things by yourself?” Buchanan asked.
“No, I didn’t,” Trotta replied.
“Who did you steal them with?” Buchanan asked.
“Joe Atsus, Al Atsus, Damien Boland and Nick Dombek in the glasses,” he said pointing to the men.
Why? Buchanan asked.
“For the money, to make money, an opportunity,” Trotta said. “That’s what we did.”
Later, in one video played in court and meant to study a New Jersey museum he later stole from, Trotta could be heard singing, “Money, money, money, money, MONEY,” the refrain of the 1970s song, “For the Love of Money” by The O’Jays.
Trotta, who has already pleaded guilty, acknowledged his plea agreement requires him to tell the truth or lose the possibility of a lighter sentence.
He also acknowledged his March 2019 arrest for drunken driving led him to cooperate with police.
“It was over,” he said. “The cat was out of the bag. It was just over.”
'Like an older brother to me'
Buchanan also led Trotta through his background and his ties to the four men.
His family moved from Elmwood Park, New Jersey, in 1985 when he was just 10 years old, he said. He met Dombek when he was 11 and Dombek was 16.
“He was like an older brother to me,” he testified.
When Dombek’s parents threw him out of their home, he came to live with the Trottas.
“He had nowhere to go,” Trotta testified.
“He met Boland in seventh grande at North Pocono Middle School.
“We hung out, did things together, just the usual stuff” kids do, he said.
He met the Atsuses about the same time. They fished and hunted together, he said.
“They’re the godfathers of my kids,” he said, but they no longer talk.
“I’m sure they don’t like me now,” he said.
The trial resumes at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday with Trotta still testifying.
