MANHATTAN — The New Jersey man accused of waltzing out of a San Francisco art gallery with a Pablo Picasso drawing had been a staffer at two of Manhattan's fanciest restaurants, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Mark Lugo, 30, of Hoboken – who allegedly made off with a Picasso pencil sketch worth $275,000 – was a sommelier at the upscale Flatiron District seafood eatery BLT Fish before his Napa Valley arrest last Wednesday, according to the Chronicle.
And from October 2005 to September 2006, Lugo worked at the heralded Per Se restaurant, inside the Time Warner Center, the paper said.
A spokeswoman for BLT Fish said she was unable to confirm the report, and the spokesman for Per Se did not immediately return a request for comment.
A sommelier named Mark Lugo was reported to have left Per Se for BLT Fish in a November 2006 issue of Food Arts.
Lugo is accused of grabbing the sketch, titled "Tete de Femme (Head of a Woman)," off a wall at the Weinstein Gallery in San Francisco's Union Square on July 5.
He fled by taxi and was discovered in Napa the next day, along with the treasured drawing, according to the San Francisco Police Department. He was allegedly caught on surveillance camera carrying the precious art piece at his side, the Chronicle reported.
Bail was set at $5,000,000 for the sommelier, who faces burglary and drug charges for items allegedly found on him at the time of his arrest, according to the SFPD.
