Implosion of the birdie snatchers
Colin Freeman talks to four former students whose botched art theft inspired new film American Animals
For the FBI detectives on the case, it was never quite clear whether they were chasing criminal masterminds or utter incompetents. On a sunny December morning in 2004, two thieves had burst into the rare books section of Kentucky’s Transylvania University, overpowering a librarian and making off with nearly US$750,000 ($1.13 million) worth of loot.
The haul included Hortus Sanitatis, a 15th-century tome that was the world’s first nature encyclopedia, a first edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species, and a stash of pencil sketches by John James Audubon, widely regarded as America’s finest nature artist.
Clearly, the thieves had done their art history homework, identifying the collection’s most valuable books.
It would have been one of America’s biggest art heists, had the robbers not failed comically in their quest for their main prize — four double-sized folios of Audubon’s illustrated Birds of America, worth US$12m. It wasn’t because they were hard to steal — they were in an easily breakable glass case — but for the simple reason that the 1m-long folios proved too heavy to carry.
In full view of other library users, the thieves abandoned the Audubons on the floor before fleeing to a getaway car — not a Bullitt-style Ford Mustang, but a Dodge Caravan borrowed from one of the thieves’ mothers. The whole thing seemed less like The Thomas Crown Affair and more like a student prank.
Remarkably, that was more or less what it was — albeit one that went far beyond usual frat house antics. Two months later, the FBI arrested Spencer Reinhard, a Transylvania arts student, Eric Borsuk, an accountancy major, Warren Lipka, a football scholar, and Charles Allen, a business major.
“It started out as this weird idea, but in the end, we built up the fantasy so long that we felt if we didn’t actually do it, we wouldn’t be able to move forward in life,” said Borsuk, now 33.
All were from comfortable, middleclass backgrounds — which, it seemed, was precisely the problem: their futures felt too secure, a lifetime in suburban America with no chance to make their mark.
Even for a heavy weed smoker like Lipka — the heist’s unlikely slackercum-mastermind — it was quite a leap of imagination.
The four certainly made their mark. The theft was headline news of America, Birds Eric Borsuk
across America, as well as earning each of its protagonists seven “gap years” apiece in federal prison. And now, their exploits have been recreated in a critically acclaimed film, American Animals.
The feature debut of British director Bart Layton, who made his name with documentary The Imposter, it splices real interviews with the felons with a re-enactment that sticks as closely as possible to the original story.
“The crime itself seemed so misguided, and these were young, well-educated men with plenty of opportunities,” Layton said.
“I wanted to get to grips with the why of it.”
Even so, much of it seems barely believable.
What sort of amateurs would plan their tactics by watching heist movies like Snatch and Oceans 12?
Why, when arrested, did Lipka have, not just the books by his bed, but also a five-page typed plan for the heist? And why on earth did Eric Borsuk agree to take part, given that he was hoping one day to join the FBI? Was life really that boring?
“I think, yes, we all felt that to a certain degree, this was about searching for a life with meaning,” Borsuk says. “I grew up in this cloistered, conservative, southern American society, and I found I just didn’t agree with it any more. So when the others came to me with this [heist plan], it seemed, paradoxically, the perfect proposal.”
Indeed, in some ways, it was. The gang got the idea after Reinhard went on a freshman tour of a library, during which the librarian, Betty “BJ” Gooch, mentioned the worth of the 19thcentury Audubon folios.
Full of exquisite, life-size drawings, they were one of only 120 sets in existence.
Thieves had targeted other sets around the world, yet at the university, the sole security protocol was that visitors to the rare books room had to make an appointment by email with Gooch. Fort Knox it wasn’t.
Borrowing colour-coded pseudonyms from Reservoir Dogs, “Mr Green, Mr Yellow, Mr Black and Mr Pink”, they set to work, casing the library and studying getaway routes, just as they’d seen in the movies.
Still their nerve failed on their first attempt. Having disguised themselves unconvincingly as whiskery, book-loving pensioners — Lipka’s flowing grey beard looked more like a hipster’s — they approached the rare books section to find Gooch with a colleague.
The following morning, the robbery went ahead, Lipka subduing Gooch with a stun-gun, tying her up and gagging her.
Stealing the books, though, was straightforward enough: the hard part was finding a buyer. Lipka, who was already dabbling in petty fraud, claimed to have a criminal contact who introduced him to an underworld “fence”, or buyer, in Amsterdam, a major hub for stolen art.
The fence offered to buy the books for a third of their value, but insisted the gang get them authenticated at Christie’s first. Foolishly, the gang used the same email address to make the Christie’s appointment as for the appointment with Gooch.
It was then only a matter of time before the FBI connected the two, although when armed police finally crashed through their doors, Borsuk actually felt relieved.
“We’d realised by then that we weren’t going to get existential satisfaction from what we’d done, and we were glad to be no longer looking over our shoulders.”
Lipka, Allen and Borsuk are all writers, skills honed in prison, while Reinhard has continued his art career, painting a poster for the film.
Might the fact that they are now the stars of their own heist film suggest that crime has paid off — through fame, if not fortune? It is a question about which Gooch is ambivalent.
“It bothers me a little that they will become famous,” she says. “I hope now that they’ll lead fruitful, productive lives.”
. . . we felt if we didn’t actually do it, we wouldn’t be able to move forward in life.
American Animals opens in NZ cinemas next month.