A FOILED BIT OF ART THIEVERY DOWNTOWN 
Two men in casual business attire attempted to walk out of a basement service door of the JPMorgan Chase Tower at 600 Travis St. after midnight last night with the beach-scene painting pictured at right, which had been hanging in one of the building’s common areas. Police recovered the painting from a stairwell near the Alonti Cafe, where the pair appeared to have dropped it after hearing sirens. Suspects were arrested as they walked casually along the sidewalk in front of the building, and charged with felony theft. [News92FM] Photo: KHOU
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Oddly enough, I have admired these paintings at the Alonti Greenway and even contacted the artist to discuss purchasing one (never heard back by the way). Not sure if these are real paintings or Giclee…I would bet on the latter. Maybe they had trouble geting hold of the artist, too. http://joansteinman.com/
i want to know so much more about this. Top art crime of the year in my book.
I’m assuming it’s a felony because someone said it’s worth $7,000 and is painted by some local artist. A good attorney will have this dropped down to misdemeanor or even dropped because in real word the painting has no value. Try to sell some random painting by a local unknown artist and you’ll be lucky to get $20 bucks for it. If they say “auction price” is 7k, he can easily argue that a court ordered liquidation of such asset would be worth less than the hole in the sheetrock that it covers.
Chase should have paid them to take it.
Major ugly! Are the police sure that Chase didn’t pay them to steal it?