£9.4 million of art stolen in New York; owner hadn’t checked on his collection in months and separately was involved in an incident where he kicked a child in 2016 (and then fled to the Guggenheim)
On Friday, the New York Daily News reported that a 62-year old Upper East Side based inventor has been robbed of £9.4 million ($12 million, €10.7 million or درهم44.1 million) worth of artworks in a heist in December 2016 but strangely did not realise they’d gone until June 2017.
Dr William Pordy – a former kidney doctor turned the founder of OWNcones, a manufacturer of somewhat strange looking reusable ice cream cones – last checked on his swanky collection, which was being stored in Northern Boulevard, Sunnyside, on 25th October 2016 and then returned to discover they’d gone eight months later on 1st June 2017.
Of being robbed of twenty-two works that included masterpieces by Post-Impressionist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and minimalist painter Frank Stella, Pordy told the New York Daily News:
“They broke the locks and they stole everything, all my paintings. It’s awful. I’m upset because it’s worth a lot of money. Do you have $12 million? The point is that I had it and was going to sell them”.
Five works, plainly deemed not worth stealing, were left behind in the theft – which police now believe occurred on 30th December 2016 – and now, it transpires, in a totally unrelated incident, Pordy was convicted of misdemeanor disorderly conduct and given a conditional discharge after kicking a 6-year-old girl who accidentally brushed against him on the Upper West Side on 18th October 2016.
During the incident, though the child struck her head on the ground and passerby tried to restrain him, Pordy reportedly escaped and was later found in the Guggenheim Museum. Police sources reported: “He became irate and had to be tackled and handcuffed”.
Plainly this won’t be the end of this saga but there’s definitely one lesson to learn here: “Mind your art”.
Pictured above: Dr William Pordy (left) and an example of a work by Henri de Toulouse-Lautre (not from his collection).