Warren went up to the third floor to meet Gooch, while Eric waited downstairs for him to call. agents poured in over the wreckage. An American Animals coloring book, as well as original drawings Skip to content Spencer Reinhard Home After Audubon Prison Period Abstract Abstract color series Post prison Abstract About Shop Commissions Contact Menu Home After Audubon Prison Period Warren made an appraisal appointment at Christie's in New York for Walter Beckman, a pseudonym inspired by the soccer star David Beckham. He thought he was much better than everybody else, and he got to the point where he wasn't like us. [This librarian] doesn't know what we're carrying, but she's like, Where did these kids come from? Eric says. Warren called Gooch back to change Walter Beckman's appointment to three P.M. On the morning of December 16, Warren's carefully scripted plan began to unravel almost immediately. Between studying for his first semester's finals, working out, and painting, Spencer made time to scope out the Special Collections section of the Transy library, reporting back to Warren weeks later that there was zero security other than an old lady librarian named B.J. When I get up there, B.J. Sign up for The Gleaners morning and evening newsletters. (Throughout the interviews with the three, it became clear that Chas was the odd man out among the group. Back at Warrens that afternoon, the boys were transfixed by local coverage of the Transy Book Heist.. Ezra Millers Messiah Delusions: Inside. Once Warren had pulled the cap over Gooch's eyes, the two laid a bedsheet on the ground and began piling on the seven Audubon folios they intended to steal (the four-volume Birds of America plus three volumes from another Audubon series). computers in the Lexington field office. Wearing a heavy coat, gloves, and a wool cap, Beckman signed the visitors log. His malaise was likely exacerbated by his parents impending divorce amid his mothers allegations that his father, Big Warren, the celebrated coach of the universitys womens soccer team, had gambled the family into bankruptcy. Nothing panned out until mid-January, when, following a federal subpoena, Yahoo delivered all the data on its servers related to the walter.beckman@yahoo.com address. notified all the airports in the area, dispatched officers to surrounding neighborhoods, and called the F.B.I. Built over old tobacco fields in the 80s, they feature ponds with fountains, cookie-cutter brick Colonial houses, street names like Ironbridge Drive and Turnberry Lane, and regulations authorizing penalties for unkempt yards and tacky lawn Santas. Photographed by Nan Goldin at the tender age of 19, just about to release his Tony Richardson film. from an unsuspecting friend and got his hands on zip ties, a wool cap, electrician's tape, and bedsheets. Warren and Chas left the other two and staggered to the nearby China Club, a tacky West Side nightclub, which they knew about from the famous Rick James episode of Chappelle's Show. Spencer, meanwhile, was short, wiry, distant, and in many ways Warren's opposite: an over-scheduled, over-achieving, diamond-tipped drill of a kid who excelled at whatever he set himself to. Behind the main building and through three blastproof security doors is the prison visitors room, where I meet separately with Likpa, Reinhard, and Borsuk for a series of interviews almost a year into their sentence. The F.B.I. And the woman there says, We had a set just like this that we sold four years ago for like $12 million. It could have been eight. I guess when we did that she went upstairs to check on B.J.. My world view actually expanded. Spencer received a commission to paint murals at a local school and kept up his soccer training, Eric started a lawn-care business with his friend Chas Allen, and Warren landed a job at a local day camp. And one thing led to another and we were just like, Let's put this behind us. And once we get past all of that, we started talking about this plan that he and Spencer have. Spencer drives me out to Lexington [Blue Grass Airport] on a Friday. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Writing from walter.beckman@yahoo.com, Warren sent B. J. Gooch an e-mail confirming Beckmans December 16 appointment at the Rare Book Room to view the Audubons and a few other items. After a short wait, a young Christies employee, Melanie Halloran, came out to apologize, as Mr. Leckey, due to an impending public auction, would be unable to see them. The painting is a kaleidoscope of images, including what appears to be a computer, a cell phone, a bong, the Transylvania library, and loose sheets of notepaper, floating above a desiccated one-eyed young man in a watch cap, kicking back on a beat-up couch with a blue dog on his lap. It had some tennis trivia in there that I wasn't expecting.. By one o'clock that afternoon, the 227-year-old liberal-arts college was swarming with campus police, uniformed Lexington Police, plainclothes detectives, and forensic teams, as well as local news crews covering the developing Transy Book Heist, a crime that would one day be listed among the F.B.I. One evening it occurred to Spencer that they had used the Walter Beckman Yahoo account to contact both Christie's and Gooch. If you want to do something, you should figure out how you are going to do it. We spoke about his paintings, especially A Plan to Fail. A week later came a terse reply, telling Terry that, if he wanted to sell something, he was going to have to come in person to Amsterdam, as that is where I do business. Both Spencer and Warren were thrilleduntil they realized it would require traveling with a passport. Serving a seven-year prison sentence following his involvement in a notorious heist (portrayed in the film American Animals), Spencer Reinhard was committed to not losing "the best years of his life." He turned to his own art, determined to refine his craft and technique. It immediately had kind of sparked my imagination, like a fantasy., O.K., so were sitting in the car, smoking weed, Warren recalls, and then Spencer said, I just took a tour in that library, and theres shit sitting there you wouldnt believe. Spencer believed it was an insurmountable problem. The truth is, but for one obvious, big mistakethe trip to Christie'sthey probably would have gotten away with it, a Lexington police detective told me. ). Because this is so much bigger than anything weve done before, Eric says. Having told their parents that they were going on a ski trip to West Virginia, that weekend they loaded the loot into Erics Ford Explorer and took off on the 12-hour drive to New York for their Christies appointment. Speculative plans became actual plans, the plan became a dry run, the dry run became a crime - a botched affair that . The painting is a kaleidoscope of images, including what appears to be a computer, a cell phone, a bong, the Transylvania library, and loose sheets of notepaper, floating above a desiccated. I was kind of skeptical, continues Spencer, but the way I rationalized it was: it's the biggest auction house. I think we all knew that we wanted something different, and we had to break away from where we were living. The investigation of the Transy Book Heist came to an explosive end on the morning of February 11, 2005, as a SWAT unit broke down the front door of the yellow bungalow with a battering ram, blasting stun grenades throughout the building. What they would tell me, then, is their version of eventsand the only complete account of the planning, execution, and aftermath of the heist. Eric rented a proper bedroom upstairs, while Spencer moved back into the dorms at Transylvania. agent discovered the stolen books, all undamaged, as well as the five-page typed plan for the heist, an accounting ledger, wigs, instructions for opening a Swiss bank account, and stun guns, which had apparently arrived after the robbery. He was just so unbearable. is parked in front of the library and the four are in 1st Position at bottom of stairs of library.. They take you in the Special Collections and show you these books, Spencer remembers, including Transy's prized Birds of America, by John James Audubon, a four-volume set of life-size engravings the pioneer wildlife artist completed in London in 1838. onto nearby Fourth Street and careened through traffic before stopping a mile farther on, in front of a predominantly black housing project. Copyright 2023 The Gleaner Company (Media) Limited. Eric and Chas dropped Warren and Spencer off around the corner from Christies. The stun guns Warren had ordered never arrived, so he drove around town and returned with a Black Cobra Stun Pen, and had Spencer zap him and Eric to test its knockdown power. In the morning, Warren says, he left two messages with Leckeys secretary and two more that afternoon. Before rendering her decision, the judge made preliminary findings that each of the boys was equally culpable, that the value of the books stolen would include only those physically removed from the building, and although Gooch suffered no bodily injury, the stun pen was in fact a dangerous weapon. Believe me, you havent heard the last of us yet.. All Rights Reserved. All four were brought to Lexington police headquarters and individually interrogated by F.B.I. sent a team to interview Melanie Halloran, who told the agents about her meeting with Mr. Stephens and Mr. Williams. I was born in Lexington, Kentucky and was raised by my wonderful parents in what was a largely carefree and happy childhood. They're all slim and dressed identically in cheap sneakers and a khaki uniform emblazoned with their incarceration numbers, and all have hair down to their shoulders. Phase 1 begins at the bungalow when all four get into what Warren designated the G.T.A.V., or the Go-to-and-Away-Vehicle, all disguised as old men. Undeterred, Warren introduced himself as Terry, firmly shaking hands before sitting down. Warren and Spencer readied themselves early without waking the others, silently showering, shaving, and putting the finishing touches on their outfits. (Having seen their fair share of heist movies, they knew how dangerous it was to leave a paper trail.) Because their campuses were only a mile apart, they assumed they would stay close, but as with most freshmen, their assured identities and easy expectations muddied once they hit campus. The truth is, but for one obvious, big mistakethe trip to Christiesthey probably would have gotten away with it, a Lexington police detective told me. How the hell would we do this? And he said, I know a guy in New York.. With each taking one end of the Audubons, they made their way to the staff-only elevator. Far from being social outcasts, they had been popular athletes, and two were on some form of college scholarship. agents poured in over the wreckage. When summer break began, the three returned home to the subdivisions of South Lexington. So we go back to the guy in Lexington and we say, Listen, we want to go somewhere, we want to go out of the country, and we need documentation, Warren explains. These peoples perspectives, because they have money, theyre tweaked., In October of his freshman year, Warren quit the U.K. soccer team, forfeiting his scholarship. There were all sorts of theories as to why they had done it: they were drug addicts; they had amassed large gambling debtsor Lipka's father had, and the boys did it to save the family's honor (the variant most popular with the local papers). American Animals is a 2018 heist film written and directed by Bart Layton.Starring Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner, Jared Abrahamson, and Ann Dowd, it follows four college friends who plan a heist of their library.It tells the story of an actual heist which took place at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky in 2004.. American Animals premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film . To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. When I get up there, B.J. I get the call on the cell phone. The boys readily agreed, and she escorted them through the offices to a small conference room. I want to say living that kind of lifethe country clubs, sitting in a classroom and listening to two girls argue about turning down a BMW S.U.V. He loved that it had been made the screen saver on the F.B.I.s computers. See, we have no choice now but to create something new, someplace else. Afterward, Warren and Spencer briefed the others, and the four went to lunch, where, the boys say, Chas insisted they spend another night in New York and attempt to see Mr. Leckey the next day. He thought he was much better than everybody else, and he got to the point where he wasnt like us. You know, most people look at that painting as if it was a plan destined to fail, but at the same time, we were planning to fail., In a few years well be released. We felt bad., Warren and Eric rode the elevator to the basement, but they couldnt find the fire exit. After several phone calls Warren managed to arrange a meeting in New York. These people's perspectives, because they have money, they're tweaked., In October of his freshman year, Warren quit the U.K. soccer team, forfeiting his scholarship. It was just funny because weve been in a lot of places that theyve been, Eric says. We figured, All right, well, now we just got what we thought would be impossible possibly taken care of, Spencer tells me. He also didn't have photos, photocopies, documentation, or even the slightest ability to intelligently discuss the books. Spencer would communicate with Warren from a cell phone, which Warren would steal from a student in the morning. Spencer Reinhard Please send me the price list, I am interested in purchasing an original Reinhard After Audubon 2014 to Present After prison I took up a casual interest in birds. The reaction to the plan was generally positiveshortly after Thanksgiving, they moved forward. To be such a big part of her life has been a joy. The ground floor quickly filled with shouting cops, screaming young women, and a few dazed men in boxer shorts. Now the hard partwe have to steal them. I was nervous. The reaction to the plan was generally positiveshortly after Thanksgiving, they moved forward. 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