56 years ago
Major Massachusetts art theft news broke on March 11, 1967
I think it must have been fate.
On the day I was born—March 11, 1967—there was big breaking news in Massachusetts that perhaps foretold my destiny: 2 City Lawyers Arrested in $250,000 Art Theft
Two of the first men arrested were attorneys, Howard Cotter and Edward Hurley, both of Springfield. They were nabbed in a motel room in New Haven in possession of paintings stolen from the home of the late artist Hans Hoffman.
The heist took place in Provincetown (see my last post on another Provincetown art crime), and was discovered three months earlier, though the exact date that 42 works were taken from the Hoffman home is unknown because it had been closed since his death in February 1966.
Most of the 41 paintings and one lithograph were painted by Hoffman, the renowned artist known to some as “the dean of abstract expressionism.” He had established an art school in Munich that he reopened in the U.S., ulimately on Cape Cod.
But there were also works from his personal collection, including a Renoir and Bracques. All told, the value was estimated to be about $250,000 (somewhere in the range of $2.3 million today).
Investigators determined that the theft was perpetrated by two local men: Eldred Mowery, Jr. and Frederick “Dutch” Wehage.
The arrest of the two attorneys came after the gang involved in the heist scheme attempted to make overtures to an insurance company with the hope of selling back the stolen art for the traditional black market value of 10%, or $25,000. They did so through attorney, Hurley, who obviously didn’t spend much of his time dreaming up a pseudonym, referring to himself in communiques as “Mr. Hurley.” What Mr. Hurley did not know was that the men he believed to be insurance agents were agents of the federal sort. When he arranged for himeself and another man to make the transaction on behalf of the criminal gang, the FBI conducted a sting operation and arrested both him and Cotter for interstate transporation of stolen property. They later arrested the two thieves, an associate named Michael Rutt, and a female abettor who brought Rutt into the fold, Mildred Maffei.
It does not appear that Cotter was ultimately convicted for his role in the affair. But he had other problems. In 1969, he was convicted of a willful failure to file federal income taxes for the year 1962.
Happily, all of the works stolen from the Hoffman estate were recovered, and I take that, and that the fact that it was reported on my birthday in splashy headlines around the country, as a good omen for this aging investigator.
There he is! Dutch Wehage! I knew Dutch. I have a longtime friend who grew up in Provincetown, who later got married on a commune in Western MA. And I met Dutch in a Buddhist group in the 1980's. We compared notes at some point and found out we had this Provincetown connection, and I told my friend "Hey, I met someone you know- he was actually at your wedding!" And she deflected the conversation- which happened every time I brought him up. Finally I asked her, "What is wrong with Dutch? Why do you always act weird about him?" and she told me the whole thing. Her father and mother were artists in P-town and were very offended by him and his part in the heist, as most artists in town were. When I met Dutch, he had a vintage car- old, big, wide, low- with a trunkful of very interesting stone sculptures that he was trying to sell- "for a friend." I have photos of them all spread out on our lawn. Later I heard those were not really part of an agreement with that friend- it was an "independent venture" of his. I liked Dutch. He may not have reformed, and he made me uncomfortable, but he was a character, and had warmth and intelligence. I guess his last time in jail was for using LSD as part of a therapeutic treatment for patients- I may have that all confused but that is what I recall. And it may have worked. And he may have sold some of that sculpture and given the proceeds to his friend. RIP Dutch.