The Boston Globe reported today that a retired criminal defense lawyer, Robert M. Mardirosian, was sentenced to seven years in federal prison for “possessing six Impressionist paintings that he knew were stolen in 1978 from a house in the Berkshires in what is believed to be the largest private art theft in Massachusetts history.”
United States District Court Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf had strong words for the defendant, apparently telling him: “You started as a lawyer . . . [a]s far I’m concerned, you became a glorified fence.” The case stems from charges that Mardirosian took six Impressionist paintings that had allegedly been stolen by one of his clients from a Berkshires house and stored them in Europe.