Bloomberg reports that the ongoing saga of Radu Dogaru, the Romanian art thief whose mother claimed she burned the paintings he stole. According to Edith Balazs, Dogaru wants to trade the paintings for Dutch jail time:
“He’s still interested in cutting a deal with Dutch authorities,” Catalin Dancu, Radu Dogaru’s lawyer, told reporters in Bucharest today. Dogaru, who wants to be tried in the Netherlands and to spend his jail time there, “has control” over five of the seven stolen pictures, which “are definitely in Romania,” Dancu said. […]
The prosecution is seeking the maximum sentence of 20 years for Radu and Olga Dogaru, as well as for Eugen Darie, who is accused of driving the burglars’ get-away car.
Adrian Procop, who is suspected of carrying out the theft together with Dogaru and is still on the run from Romanian authorities, also faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. Two further defendants may face 15 and seven-year sentences. […]
The Romanian thieves planned the heist meticulously, with Dogaru taking up jogging around the museum to canvass the surroundings, according to the prosecution’s file, obtained by Bloomberg. Using the Internet to research the paintings, they picked works that fitted into bags previously purchased from Chinese vendors, according to the file.
