James Sheen and Michael Jones were sentenced by the Oxford Crown Court, finding them guilty of stealing the art object “America” - a golden toilet, created by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. The theft took place in Blenheim Palace in England. About this informs Art News.
Sheen was sentenced to four years in prison for burglary. His co-conspirator Jones, who watched over the palace before the crime, was jailed for 27 months. According to the investigation, the criminals dismantled the art object “America” in just five minutes on the third day of its display in the Blenheim Palace – the ancestral estate of the Churchill family, which is a UNESCO world heritage site.
The Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement that although the theft was carefully planned, the attackers left behind a lot of evidence: phone messages, traces of DNA in the stolen car and a sledgehammer used to break down the door. The investigation established that Jones visited the palace twice before the crime: first before the opening of the exhibition, and then to photograph the place where the sculpture was installed.
In the early morning of September 14, 2019, Sheen and his accomplices broke through the locked gate in two stolen cars. Surveillance cameras recorded how they broke the entrance with a sledgehammer and crowbars, and then loaded the toilet into the back of one of the cars.
A few days later, Sheen contacted Frederick Dow using coded messages to discuss selling the gold. They agreed to pay £26,500 ($34,500) per kilogram. Doe previously received a 21-month suspended sentence with two years of probation and 240 hours of community service. The sculpture, insured for about $6 million, has still not been found.
“America” was created by Maurizio Cattelan in 2016 and was presented for the first time at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The installation was interactive — visitors could use the toilet for its intended purpose, which caused great excitement and queues. Later, the art object was shown at an exhibition of the artist’s works in the family home of Winston Churchill in the 18th century.
