New Bedford Mayor Helped Recover Stolen Painting Worth $30 Million

A famous stolen painting once auctioned for $29.3 million at Sotheby’s has a surprising connection to New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell.

Before becoming mayor, Mitchell worked as a federal prosecutor and helped prosecute a bizarre art theft case involving a painting by Paul Cézanne.

The mayor talked about his connection to the case this morning on WBSM on the anniversary of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft.

READ MORE: Massachusetts Museum the Site of One of America's Biggest Unsolved Heists

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The Stolen Painting That Started It All

The painting, titled "Bouilloire et Fruits" (or "Kettle and Fruits"), was stolen from a private home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in 1978. It was one of several valuable pieces taken during a burglary, but the Cézanne was the crown jewel of the heist.

The painting remained missing for years, seemingly falling off the face of the earth. However, the difficulty with owning a stolen piece of fine art is that there is very little you can do with it. You can't proudly display it in your home, and you certainly can't put it up on Facebook marketplace. No one who can afford to buy a painting worth millions of dollars would take that kind of a risk.

A Shocking Twist Years Later

The case took a strange turn when the man who stole the paintings brought them to his lawyer in Falmouth, Robert Mardirosian, asking what to do with them. Instead of turning them in, the attorney kept them and spent nearly 20 years trying to profit from the stolen art.  According to the FBI, Mardirosian snuck the paintings out of the United States and put them in a Swiss Bank, demanding a $1 million finder's fee for their return.

Eventually, an organization called the Art Loss Register stepped in and worked out a deal to recover the Cézanne painting.

In 1999, the Cézanne painting was finally returned and later sold at auction for nearly $30 million.

How Jon Mitchell Helped Solve the Case

Years later, Mitchell became involved when the legality of the agreement used to recover the painting was put into question. As the prosecutor, he argued that the deal was essentially a ransom and that Mardirosian had no legal right to profit from stolen property. Mardirosian was ultimately convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison for possessing the stolen art.

A Case That Still Stands Out

Looking back, Mitchell described the case as "fun" and one of the "most unusual of his career." It combined art, crime, and a complicated legal battle that stretched across decades.

The FBI recognizes Assistant U.S. Attorney Jon Mitchell's work key to the prosecution of the case.