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Cleaner Steals Art From Gramercy Home, Then Sells It Back to Victim: Police

By Heather Holland | November 13, 2014 3:50pm
  Luis Florentino, 25, broke into an apartment on Gramercy Park and stole 16th-century art, police said.
Luis Florentino, 25, broke into an apartment on Gramercy Park and stole 16th-century art, police said.
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D. Madeo

GRAMERCY — A cleaner stole $20,000 worth of religious paintings from an acclaimed film producer's Gramercy apartment, and then sold the artwork back to him for $200, the NYPD said.

Luis Florentino, 27, was hired in late August to clean a Gramercy Park South home belonging to Calvin Skaggs, 77, the award-winning producer of films including "The Wash" and "The Fig Tree," police said.

Several weeks after the job was done, Florentino returned to the building at about 3:35 p.m. on Sept. 16, broke a third-floor window and snatched three valuable 16th- and 17th-century Russian icons, paintings depicting religious figures, from Skaggs' apartment, according to Skaggs and police.

He set off an alarm but escaped before police arrived and went straight to Skaggs' office, which was nearby on 17th Street, police and Skaggs said.

Florentino offered to sell the paintings back to Skaggs for $200, apparently unaware of how much they were worth, Skaggs said. Skaggs agreed and paid Florentino the money and got the paintings back, police said. 

The next morning, just when Skaggs thought his ordeal was over, he was walking back to his office at about 10:20 a.m. when Florentino suddenly approached him and demanded another $1,200, police said.

When Skaggs refused, Florentino pulled out a knife and tried to grab Skaggs' wallet out of his pants pocket, according to a criminal complaint from the Manhattan District Attorney's office.

"He threatened me with a knife, and there were so many people around," Skaggs recalled this week. "It was going-to-work time. I didn't think he would knife me, so I yelled."

A bystander intervened, and Florentino fled empty-handed, the complaint said. Police were alerted, but Florentino got away a second time.

Florentino was finally arrested on Nov. 6 at the 13th Precinct and was charged with burglary and attempted robbery, police said. It was not immediately clear how he was caught.

A temporary order of protection was issued, and Florentino is due back in court on Nov. 12, records show.

Florentino's attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

Other recent crimes that occurred in the 13th Precinct include:

► A man bumped into a woman who was texting while walking in Union Square and then attacked her when she got to the nearby subway station, police said.

The victim was walking in front of 10 Union Square West at about 4:15 p.m. Nov. 5 when 27-year-old Lawrence Hollaway bumped into her, police said.

She apologized and began walking away, but Hollaway followed her into the subway station, shoved her to the ground and tried to grab the cellphone out of her coat pocket, police said.

Hollaway was charged with attempted robbery, a felony, according to court records. He is due back in court on Dec. 11. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.