Crime & Safety

Report: FBI Thinks Manchester Man Received Stolen Gardner Paintings

Robert Gentile, 75, in the $500 million heist of 13 paintings from the Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990 is further detailed extensively in a Hartford Courant piece on Monday.

Ronald DeRosa, Patch StaffVerified Patch Staff Badge
|

Robert Gentile is the 75-year-old Manchester man who was sentenced earlier this month to 2.5 years in federal prison for selling narcotics.  

But what Gentile is really known for is his alleged connection to an infamous heist of 13 pieces of artwork — valued at $500 million — from the Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990 that federal agents believe he knows information about and is not telling.

Gentile denies any connection to this heist, however the most recent article in The Hartford Courant published Monday fleshes out even more his alleged role in an intertwining gangster tale going back 23 years.

The Courant reports that federal investigators believe Gentile went to Maine in 2003 to meet with Robert Guarente, a longtime convicted bank robber and Gentile's co-Mafia member. Guarente is alleged to have known the people who FBI agents believe partook in the heist.

The Courant then reports that during that trip to Maine, Guarante’s wife, Elene Guarante, told investigators she believes her husband put “one or more of the stolen paintings in their car before they left their home in the woods and that the art was handed off to Gentile in Portland.”  

Read the full Courant story here.  

Read other Patch stories related to this topic:  

Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

To request removal of your name from an arrest report, submit these required items to arrestreports@patch.com.

More from Manchester