a plan to fail spencer reinhard painting

Forensically examining Instagram accounts, interviews, and police reports, author Kathleen Hale reconstructs their relationship, and ultimately Petitos murder. 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. Warren and Chas go up to the Rare Book Room, on the third floor, and Warren brings Gooch down hard and fast with a stun gun, making her a non-factor throughout the operation. Warren and Chas then let Eric in and they begin wrapping the Audubons in bedsheets and put any smaller books in backpacks. Warren and Eric got out of the G.T.A.V. Copyright 2023 The Gleaner Company (Media) Limited. Thats what we were doing, kind of living this little Matchstick Men, college kind of life.. [This librarian] doesn't know what we're carrying, but she's like, Where did these kids come from? Eric says. 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. Having concluded that the next logical stage of his development was to study art in college he enrolled at Transylvania University in Kentucky. As reported by People, poor planning and a fumbling execution including one member, Reinhard, leaving his home phone number at an action house eventually led to their capture. In the morning, Warren says, he left two messages with Leckeys secretary and two more that afternoon. In a duffel bag by his bed an F.B.I. Lifting a technique straight from the film Reservoir Dogs, Warren assigned code names based on color. Eric dropped the books, and he and Warren made a run for it. And thats when I came up.. . Across town at U.K., in a towering cinder-block dorm, Warrens world was spinning apart at a much faster clip. But before long they were put to chase once again, this time by two local thugs. She agreed. Although the two hadn't really been in contact in the first few months of school, Warren knew that Spencer's artistic talents would be an asset. They were skeptical, Warren recalls. Phase 2 involves the actual theft, and begins when Spencer takes his position at an upper-floor window of the nearby athletic center, where he will be on lookout. So we get the passport from the dude, plane tickets. In exchange, Barry slipped him an e-mail address with instructions to sign off any communication with the name Terry. But before long they were put to chase once again, this time by two local thugs. Warren called me one night and he's like, We need to get together. During our interview Eric told me, He was like just a weight on us. Spencer was born in 1984 in Lexington Kentucky. After becoming disillusioned with the college experience, I rebelled from the sterile, privileged life I was leading by committing six felonies which famously landed me in prison for 87 months. He loved that it had been made the screen saver on the F.B.I. New film American Animals tells the story of one of the most audacious heists in U.S. history when three well off friends Spencer Reinhard, Warren Lipka, Eric Borsuk and Chas Allen decided to try . After a short wait, a young Christies employee, Melanie Halloran, came out to apologize, as Mr. Leckey, due to an impending public auction, would be unable to see them. Spencer called himself Mr. Stephens. Only by committing a felony could they ensure that they would never end up living back in the sterile, suburban world of the subdivisions. The partnership flourished, with Warren as the face of the operation and Eric in charge of ID production, until the two had an argument over $2,000 that went missing from Eric's drawer. The crew arrived in New York City early Sunday morning. When an agent called, he got a voice-mail recording, This is Spence. The truth is, but for one big mistake, they probably would have gotten away with it, an L.P.D. Chas cursed Warren as an incompetent, and condemned the other two as burnouts, demanding that the three figure out a way to get the books appraised so they could move on to the next phase of the plan. We need to just get over this stuff, Eric tells me, explaining how Warren re-entered his life after their falling-out the previous semester. After a brief discussion they chose Chas Allen, a handsome, clean-cut U.K. business major who had started the lawn-care company with Eric the previous summer. Sign up for The Gleaners morning and evening newsletters. I showed artistic ability from a young age and was selected to attend SCAPA in the fourth grade. Warren was like, Ive talked to these guys. That was the plan. We told B.J. 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. Warren introduced himself as Mr. Williams. I'm not going to lie. Wearing a heavy coat, gloves, and a wool cap, Beckman signed the visitors' log. (Through his attorney, Allen declined to be interviewed.) Eric Borsuk, Spencer Reinhard, Charles 'Chas' Allen IIand Warren Lipka hatched a grand plan to steal rare books from their uni library Credit: KKYT. How the hell would we do this? And he said, I know a guy in New York.. Once safely back in Lexington, the two created a Yahoo account and sent off the e-mail in which they claimed to have unspecified rare books in their possession, using the name Terry, as instructed. He scored a joint before checking into a hole-in-the-wall and falling asleep. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. . Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. for a second vehicle at a secret location, which, according to Warrens plan, is used to transport team and loot to temporary resting place. After the heist, since it is certain that the stolen books will be entered into art-theft databases within a week, they have to get the books appraised at Christies in New York immediately. Among the prisoners are three of the four unlikely masterminds behind the Transy Book Heist: Warren Lipka, Spencer Reinhard, and Eric Borsuk. I know the collection is extensive and anything you think I might be interested in seeing, by all means, share, he wrote. He said his name was John. Several weeks before Spencer was approached by Warren about the fake-ID business, he had been on a freshman-orientation tour of Transy, including the library and its exceptional collection of rare books and manuscripts. They tried to come up with some link the cops could make between them and the theft, but they couldn't. I never intended to paint them and I resisted the idea but in the end I couldn't help but indulge the irony. Warren and Spencer readied themselves early without waking the others, silently showering, shaving, and putting the finishing touches on their outfits. The others spent time in the library, too, taking notes on staff routines and viable escape routes. 5 The British Bank Robber Foiled By His Own Handwriting. They climbed onto dorm roofs, where theyd stake out the library for hours at a time, marking down the comings and goings of teachers, students, and security personnel. At only $200 a month, the price was right, as Warren was broke after having shut down his and Spencer's fake-ID business and dropping out of U.K. for the semester to focus full-time on the heist. 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. Like, they were doing something serious, talking about the heist, going over the plan, and somebody would make a joke. 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. Reinhard is here for a monthlong working visit at the invitation of Bianca Bartley and Zuar Jarrett, the programme director and chairman, respectively, of the recently launched creative initiative in St Mary targeting local and foreign artists spanning various disciplines. (Big Warren declined to comment on the gambling accusations at the time.) Like many aspiring art students Spencer believed that the academic community he was joining would inspire and enlighten him, exposing him to new experiences and methods. Frank Spencer Broker at Keller Williams Realty Published Feb 20, 2017 + Follow This past week we held a training outlining the 21 . So we ate at Pazzo's pizza pub. 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. Warren jumped at the opportunity and recruited another adrift freshman, his old high-school soccer teammate Eric Borsuk, as a partner. Chas turned the G.T.A.V. Titled A Plan to Fail, it was part of a series he had done on the crime for a local art gallery while out on bond. Spencer, meanwhile, was short, wiry, distant, and in many ways Warrens opposite: an over-scheduled, over-achieving, diamond-tipped drill of a kid who excelled at whatever he set himself to. Phase 3 is the escape, which involves switching the G.T.A.V. computers in the Lexington field office. For Spencer it all started with a series of mild disappointments. 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. Mr. Beckman now wanted these books appraised. The press invariably described them as good boys from good familiesupper-middle-class kids afforded every opportunity, the ones with the most to lose. Once Warren had pulled the cap over Gooch's eyes, the two laid a bedsheet on the ground and began piling on the seven Audubon folios they intended to steal (the four-volume Birds of America plus three volumes from another Audubon series). 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. By one oclock that afternoon, the 227-year-old liberal-arts college was swarming with campus police, uniformed Lexington Police, plainclothes detectives, and forensic teams, as well as local news crews covering the developing Transy Book Heist, a crime that would one day be listed among the F.B.I.s all-time most significant art-theft cases. American Animals, the 2018 biopic, written and directed by The Tinder Swindlers Bart Layton, is an acclaimed cinematic account of a younger Reinhard, a then Transylvania University junior whose plot to steal one of the rarest of US art history titles naturalist icon John James Audubons 1827 tome Birds of America as well as a first-edition Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin - led to guilty pleas from Reinhard and three chums, who paid the price: seven-year convictions across the board. 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. In fact, they all tell me that as the planning picked up in the months before the heist, the three of them came to believe that it was their best and perhaps last chance to create a viable life for themselves after college. I know now that they were my best years, and if I hadnt gone to prison, they would have been lost to temptations of the so-called free world., Shuttling between his familys adopted home in California, Colombia, and Stateside, Reinhard said: The transition for me has been great. 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. believing that they had escaped with next to nothing. 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. Warren also ordered four stun guns over the Internet. They think we have [the books]. received two additional pieces of evidence from Christies: security-camera footage of the meeting and a cell-phone number the men had left behind. Back at Warrens that afternoon, the boys were transfixed by local coverage of the Transy Book Heist.. As she inspected the items, Halloran dutifully took notes, then asked a few questions regarding their provenance, which Spencer answered as best he could under the circumstances. into a perfect parking space and watched as Eric and Warren entered the library. When summer break began, the three returned home to the subdivisions of South Lexington. Around Halloween, Warren drafted a working plan, which he presented to the other three in the basement. Remembering Distinguished Jamaicans Cabinet ministers of 1955 and 1959, Tricia Nicholas makes a mark in corporate governance , Brazil reckons with artistic treasures ruined in riot, A reporter at a dying paper solves a serial murder, ChatGPT, DALL-E 2 and collapse of creative process, Set goals and appropriate their manifestation, Looted ancient sarcophagus returned to Egypt, Heres how your cup of coffee contributes to climate change, Digital Archives: Online editions 2006-Now. That was the point all along. Meanwhile, Eric lined up the G.T.A.V. They stopped talking entirely and disbanded. He was still enrolled, but only nominally, and remained on the fringes of campus life. He was also less cordial and more agitated in person, asking Gooch soon after arriving if he could invite a friend along to see the books. 's all-time most significant art-theft cases. Reinhards works will be exhibited at his residencys final exhibition on May 8, culminating in May 16s big reveal. After prison I took up a casual interest in birds. Spencer gives me 500 bucks, in my pocket. Eric and Chas dropped Warren and Spencer off around the corner from Christie's. Spencer called himself Mr. Stephens. And then they came up with the issue of getting these appraised. In a duffel bag by his bed an F.B.I. Like Barry, the men were immediately put off by Warrens youth, and even more so by the fact that he hadnt brought any of the books with him to Amsterdam. He was still enrolled, but only nominally, and remained on the fringes of campus life. See, we have no choice now but to create something new, someplace else. Boom. The Lexington Police Department's commercial-burglary squad was assigned to the case. They're all slim and dressed identically in cheap sneakers and a khaki uniform emblazoned with their incarceration numbers, and all have hair down to their shoulders. Although the two hadnt really been in contact in the first few months of school, Warren knew that Spencers artistic talents would be an asset. Despite the differing temperamentsand the disapproval of Spencers parentsthe two were best friends from the age of eight, a friendship that revolved largely around soccer. 2023 Cond Nast. In early February 2005, the F.B.I. It had some tennis trivia in there that I wasn't expecting.. I want to say living that kind of lifethe country clubs, sitting in a classroom and listening to two girls argue about turning down a BMW S.U.V. That afternoon they worked their way back uptown, to scope out Christies steel-and-glass headquarters before their Tuesday appointment. 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. Because the boys made the highly unusual decision not to accept the prosecutors offer to testify against one another during sentencing in exchange for leniency, they were each sentenced to identical seven-year terms. The plan for the actual robbery sets out three distinct phases. We felt bad., Warren and Eric rode the elevator to the basement, but they couldnt find the fire exit. Before rendering her decision, the judge made preliminary findings that each of the boys was equally culpable, that the value of the books stolen would include only those physically removed from the building, and although Gooch suffered no bodily injury, the stun pen was in fact a dangerous weapon. For footwear he went with clean white sneakers. They checked into the Hilton Hotel in Midtown, Warren signing in under the nom de guerre Harry Ballsania name backed up with one of their fake Kentucky drivers licensesand paying in cash. In between soccer practice, classes, painting, and studying, Spencer drew detailed sketches of the inside of the Special Collections Library and the adjacent Rare Book Room, making several appointments with the Special Collections librarian, Betty Jean Gooch, to scout the premises. The books, and he and Warren made a run for it the Company! In birds on their outfits Sunday morning for one big mistake, they were put to chase once,. Young age and was selected to attend SCAPA in the basement, but one... Corner from Christie 's library, too, taking notes on staff routines and viable escape routes Warren and off! Slipped him an e-mail address with instructions to sign off any communication with the most to lose nominally and! Again, this time by two local thugs escape, which involves switching G.T.A.V! Doing something serious, talking about the heist, going over the Internet, Warrens world spinning! 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