[MSN] A man caught with famous stolen art - for a second time - was sentenced Thursday in federal court at St. Louis to 10 more months in federal prison.

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

Man who stole famous art gets additional prison time
By Robert Patrick
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
06/15/2007

A man caught with famous stolen art - for a second time - was sentenced
Thursday in federal court at St. Louis to 10 more months in federal prison.

Donald R. Rasch, 46, got in trouble again while he was in prison serving a
two-year sentence for stealing more than 130 pieces of fine art, worth up to
$4 million, that belonged to David and Dianne Harter of Florida. 

Rasch and Biron A. Valier worked for a now-defunct Bridgeton storage
facility, and both pleaded guilty in 2005 to taking the art. Some was
recovered, but almost four dozen pieces were still missing. Both men said
they didn't know where the rest was.

But after Rasch had gone to prison, his girlfriend contacted authorities and
said she knew where some of the stolen art could be found.

Investigators recovered 28 pieces, worth about $98,000, from her house and
from the home of a Rasch relative, court documents show.

Officials confronted Rasch, who confessed to hiding the art and lying when
he said he made only one trip to the storage facility to steal art. He also
helped investigators find one more piece.

Rasch pleaded guilty in May to one count of lying to the FBI, and agreed to
pay $38,000 in restitution. A New York art gallery that bought two stolen
Arthur Dove paintings from an Illinois man, who got them from Rasch, gets
$12,000 to reimburse its loss when the FBI seized the pieces. The Illinois
man gets $26,000.

Seventeen pieces of art are still missing.

http://www.stltoday.com/