By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — An Upper East Side man pleaded not guilty Friday to stealing $1 million worth of books — including rare first editions by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway — from the widow of a Vanderbilt heir.
Timothy Smith, 41, is accused of stealing the books from the late Carter Burden's prized 20th century literature collection, while he worked for Burden's widow at their Fifth Avenue mansion.
Smith, who reportedly has his own impressive collection of literature, claimed at his arraignment Friday that Susan Burden had thrown the books in the basement after she'd been unable to sell them, according to the New York Post.
Prosecutors say the defendant was caught with 51 books removed from Burden's collection on him. Smith's lawyer, however, said that many of those books actually belong to his client.
Carter Burden, an heir to Commodore Vanderbilt who was as renowned a partygoer as he was a politician and a publisher, was an avid collector of American literature.
Much of his book collection is now housed in the Pierpont Morgan library on Madison Avenue.
Smith was released on $125,000 bail.
