The sister of federal prosecutors’ star witness testified Thursday about a threatening visit to her home by a defendant in the ongoing art and sports memorabilia theft ring trial.
Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenny Roberts, Dawn Trotta, 53, said a furious Nicholas Dombek arrived at her Covington Twp. home on Sept. 7, 2019, and banged on the front door.
Dombek believed her brother, Thomas Trotta, had cooperated with police and implicated him in thefts, Dawn Trotta testified.
On the second floor of her home, she gave her daughter her cell phone and told her to call a state trooper investigating her brother’s and Dombek’s theft cases.
“If anything happens, calls this number,” she said she told her daughter.
She ran downstairs to open the front door.
“I was shaking going down the steps,” she said.
On the way down, she decided she would act as aggressively as Dombek when she stepped outside.
“He was very not happy,” she testified. “He was screaming at me, ‘Your brother’s a rat.' ... He was really mad.”
Four days later, state police charged Dombek, 54, of Thornhurst, with intimidation of a witness – Dawn Trotta and another, unnamed cooperating witness.
Trotta did not testify further Thursday about the details of the threats.
An affidavit filed when state police arrested Dombek four days later says he knew Thomas Trotta began cooperating with police and agreed to wear a recording device when they met in person.
Dombek told Dawn Trotta to tell her brother “to keep his mouth shut” and to tell police he drugged Dombek each time they met.
Dombek told her police planned to charge her brother with murder and he would get the death penalty, according to the affidavit.
Police have never accused or charged Thomas Trotta with murder, but he has pleaded guilty to his role in the theft ring. He testified at length Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday about leading the two-decade theft ring that targeted 20 museums and other venues in six states and Washington, D.C.
The loot included rare paintings at the Everhart Museum, a rare baseball jersey and player contracts at Keystone College and one-of-a-kind professional golf trophies at the Country Club of Scranton.
Dombek is on trial with three other accused ring members - brothers Joseph Atsus, 50, of Roaring Brook, and Alfred Atsus, 48, of Covington; and Damien Boland, 48, of Moscow.
Dombek eventually pleaded no contest to witness intimidation and one theft. No contest is the equivalent of a guilty plea. A Lackawanna County judge sentenced him Aug. 15, 2022, to serve 15 to 30 months in prison. He was released shortly after that because he spent most of the time after his arrest in prison, unable to post bail.
After the federal indictment in June 2023, Dombek fled and hid for seven months, but turned himself in in January 2024. He remains in prison. Prosecutors say he melted down many of the trophies, rings and other stolen loot into discs or bars that Trotta, he and Boland sold in New York City for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
During the trial, Dombek has remained mostly stoic, but he smiled continuously Thursday morning as he spoke with his daughter before Dawn Trotta took the stand.
After initially pleading not guilty, Dawn Trotta pleaded guilty Feb. 9 to a federal charge of conspiracy to commit theft of major artwork, concealment and disposal of major artwork and interstate transportation of stolen property.
Long ago, the Trottas, who moved to the North Pocono region in 1985 as children from Elmwood Park, New Jersey, and Dombek were close. Dombek moved in with the family when he was about 16 and lived with them for four or five years, Dawn Trotta testifie
“He was my boyfriend,” she said. “He was part of the family.”
She said they broke up but Dombek remained friends with her and especially her brother. In his testimony, Thomas Trotta said he and Dombek were like brothers.
Now someone who works with people with severe physical disabilities, Dawn Trotta, a mother of two, said she worked for an abstract company but lost that job because she stole about $100,000 from the company.
She had a “gambling issue,” she said.
She acknowledged she let her brother store stolen goods at her home, accepted a stolen stove for personal use, rented cars and trucks for thefts and drove ring members to pick up rental cars.
She knew her brother and the others stole, but did not know many of the details.
She did remember an odd one.
Once, she said, her brother called her as he and Dombek drove out of the Lincoln Tunnel after selling stolen loot in New York City.
Deer roam commonly in the North Pocono region of Lackawanna County where they live. They don’t right outside the tunnel, but one did that day.
“He started screaming,” she said.
The trial resumes Friday with the prosecution expected to rest its case.
