3 Lawyers Beat Rap re $6.5M Ransom Allegedly Sought for Stolen Leonardo da Vinci Masterpiece
Three lawyers have been acquitted in an alleged conspiracy attempt concerning a $6.5 million ransom sought from one of the United Kingdom’s richest peers, in exchange for the return of a stolen Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece valued at perhaps $75 million.
A jury at the high court in Edinburgh, Scotland, today held that the case against solicitor Marshall Ronald, 53, was “not proven,” reports the Guardian. It also found commercial lawyers, Calum Jones, 45, and David Boyce, 63, not guilty after an eight-week trial and two days of deliberation.
Stolen in 2003 from a Scottish castle in a record-breaking art theft, the 500-year-old painting was recovered in a 2007 police raid on a Glasgow law firm in which Jones and Boyce then worked.
Ronald still faces an attorney disciplinary case, after admittedly taking more than $500,000 from client accounts to buy the stolen painting, known as the Madonna of the Yarnwinder, from gangsters, the newspaper recounts. His one-man firm has been shut down by the the Solicitors Regulatory Authority.
He was jubilant at the verdict and said he had done nothing wrong, the newspaper recounts. Jones and Boyce declined to comment after they were acquitted.
Two other nonlawyer defendants in the case were also acquitted. They insisted after the verdict that they are still entitled to a reward, the Guardian reports:
“What we did was to bring back a culturally significant masterpiece, which is something neither the police nor the insurers could do,” said private detective John Doyle, 61. “We brought it back and we have been through two and a half years of hell since.”
Related earlier coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Retired Lawyer Must Serve Time for Holding $30M in Art Stolen By Client, 1st Circuit Says”
