[MSN] Tracing thieves' easy pickings

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Tracing thieves' easy pickings

Investigators try to match hundreds of stolen artifacts with rightful owners

It started in Palmyra with a whale's tooth and a tourism map of antique shops in upstate New York.

It grew into a criminal case so large that the FBI has been called in to help local police comb through hundreds of artifacts stolen from dozens of antique shops, historical societies and other loosely supervised public places in two states.

Three brothers from Orleans County are the main suspects in the string of thefts that police say yielded a wide, sometimes priceless, bounty.

The take included a Civil War-era sword, two Presidential Medals and a Purple Heart. There were antique dolls and statues. Some were big-ticket items, others small and sentimental.

There was even a Bible from the 1700s taken from a church, sold on eBay and now believed to be in Australia.

The Ortiz brothers - Kenneth, Michael and Roy - are accused in this roadshow crime spree. All three were charged with fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property; Kenneth and Michael remain in Orleans County Jail.

More serious charges are expected, according to investigators from several police agencies.

The Ortiz brothers admitted to hitting 200 to 500 sites during the last 18 months, using a "Sunday Driver" map for tourists that lists 112 antique dealers in New York and northern Pennsylvania, investigators said.

"It's overwhelming'

During the last year and a half, the brothers hit so many sites that even they don't remember where some of the artifacts came from, Orleans County Sheriff's Deputy Meredith Yarid said.

"It's overwhelming," said Kenneth Strickland, an Orleans County sheriff's investigator.

The magnitude of the case - as well as the fact that the U.S. Postal Service was used to send stolen goods across and out of the country - prompted the Sheriff's Office to ask that it be turned over to the FBI, Strickland said.

The three were charged after investigators recovered 450 items in August from the homes of the brothers and the home of their father in the Town of Ridgeway.

"In most cases, they would go into local mom-and-pop-type antique shops," Strickland said, "and while one or two brothers distracted a clerk, the other would just fill [his] pockets."

Among the items recovered is a Purple Heart with the name "Herbert W. Stanford" that investigators would like to return to its owner.

Police started their investigation in Palmyra near Rochester in July 2005, when they learned that someone had stolen a whale's tooth from the Palmyra Historical Society.

A series of smaller thefts followed, and thefts that preceded it might have been going on for several years, investigators said.

The brothers found easy pickings, Strickland said, because few of the targeted shops had inventory lists or labeling systems. In some cases, the stolen items were not immediately missed, he said.

The case grew as more valuable items were reported missing, including the theft June 29 of two Presidential Medals from the Niagara County Historical Society Museum in Lockport.

Each medal was appraised at $25,000, and donated by the family of Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian.

Parker had received the medals from Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and James A. Garfield for his service in the Civil War, including his preparation of a draft of the war's surrender agreement at Appomattox, Va.

"They were priceless because you can't replace them," said Melissa L. Dunlap, executive director of the Historical Society.

The Ortiz brothers are suspected of taking a display case off the wall and into a men's restroom to remove and pocket the medals, Lockport Police Detective Lt. Richard Podgers said.

Strickland said the medals were sold for about $500. Neither he nor other investigators had estimates of how much the brothers were paid for other stolen goods, but said it was likely pennies on the dollar.

Lockport police were able to recover the medals and other stolen antiques from a dealer who recently moved from Medina to South Carolina.

Trusting a hunch

The antique dealer and others who dealt with the Ortiz brothers also may face charges for knowingly selling stolen goods. "This is more than just three guys," Strickland said. "Antique dealers are supposed to get identification and receipts. They can be charged locally or face federal charges. Three or four are being looked at."

The thefts from historical societies opened up the case. Orleans County sheriff's deputies started working with police in Lockport and Palmyra - as well as in the Town of Evans in Erie County, where war helmets, a Civil War sword and an original Civil War roster were stolen in July.

Medina Police Chief Jose Avila put it all together, Podgers said.

"These guys . . . probably would have kept getting away with it if they hadn't started stealing locally," Avila said.

Kenneth Ortiz, 30, of Medina, was suspected of stealing a vehicle in the Medina Memorial Hospital parking lot June 23, Avila said. Avila said he spent a couple of weeks following him on a hunch that Ortiz might have stolen World War II medals earlier in June from the Lee Wheaton Library in Medina.

Kenneth Ortiz was charged Aug. 12 with grand larceny and accused of stealing a car. Investigators said they then searched his house and found some of the stolen antiques. Avila said he confronted Ortiz about the Medina library medals and found them buried in a swamp.

Arrests of the other brothers - Michael, 35, and Roy, 32, both of Albion - soon followed.

Podgers said he and other Lockport detectives went to the dealer in South Carolina and the dealer turned over everything he had obtained from the brothers, including the medals.

"He says he didn't know they were stolen," Podgers said.

Items still missing

Not all historical societies have been as fortunate as Niagara County's.

The Palmyra Historical Society remains without the whale's tooth. The Evans Historical Society is still trying to recover a World War II helmet, a civil defense helmet, a Civil War-type sword, and Vietnam War-era medals, stolen July 9, said Caryl A. Youngers, president of that organization.

Evans Police Lt. Samuel DeJohn said that his department was able to recover an original Civil War roster from the dealer in South Carolina but that the dealer told investigators that other items already had been sold at the Madison-Bouckville Antique Show near Syracuse in August. "We're lucky we did get something back out of this mess, but we were lied to [by the South Carolina dealer]," DeJohn said. "Things change hands so quickly that we still don't know where our things are."

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