Over the course of a long time he stole thousands and thousands of {dollars} value of sports activities memorabilia and paintings from museums. But a visitors cease would put an finish to the heisting profession of Thomas Trotta.

In 2019, Trotta was pulled over for driving erratically outdoors Scranton, Pennsylvania. Police discovered proof in his trunk, together with gloves, linking Trotta to the 2016 theft of an ATM that he’d ripped out of a grocery retailer utilizing a snowplow. 

From there, police linked him to a string of house burglaries. While in custody he started laying out for investigators the small print of unsolved museum heists, together with the thefts of Yogi Berra’s World Series rings and of paintings by Andy Warhol. He additionally gave up his longtime crew: the lookouts and getaway drivers. In alternate, Trotta obtained a decreased sentence.  

“How we justified it is ‘hey, nobody’s getting hurt,'” Trotta mentioned in an interview. “But I never looked at it like, sitting in jail for 51 months. Emotionally, I destroyed people. I know this now.”

How Trotta’s crime spree began 

Trotta, 48, grew up outdoors Scranton, Pennsylvania. He was a sports activities fan and particularly liked baseball. His grandparents took him to Yankees video games. 

Trotta additionally grew up a thief. He mentioned he nonetheless believed in Santa when he started stealing. 

Trotta remembers happening a fishing journey along with his dad and sneaking into the hatchery at 3 a.m. to scoop up salmon with nets after they could not catch fish. 

Later on, Trotta ran with a crew of neighborhood associates who, in time, would develop into his alleged accomplices. He mentioned they quickly went from robbing pay telephones to burglarizing houses. Theft turned his full-time job. Marrying his two passions, Trotta pulled his first sports activities memorabilia heist in 1999.

An exhibit dedicated to Hall of Fame pitcher Christy Mathewson, winner of 373 video games, went on show at Keystone College in Factoryville, Pennsylvania. It featured a jersey commemorating the 1905 World Series. The lady operating the show allowed guests, together with Trotta, to rise up shut. She even took the jersey out of the show case and let Trotta maintain it. 

“Right away, my head’s spinning,” Trotta mentioned. “I’m thinking who I’m going to call and who’s going to help me with this. Because it was only gonna be on display for one day.”

He went again later that evening for the jersey and, after stealing it, Trotta says he felt compelled to attempt it on.

“The fact that he wore it during the game, I got a kick,” Trotta mentioned. “I’m a fanatical baseball fan.”

With time, Trotta developed an M.O. He would go to the venues he deliberate to focus on, generally bringing alongside his niece or nephew, as in the event that they had been vacationers on a household journey. He would movie the objects he was concentrating on, paying attention to nearest doorways and home windows. Trotta mentioned nobody ever suspected he was casing the museums. 

“Not in a million years. I have a dorky look to me, I know this,” Trotta mentioned. “I don’t look like a criminal at all.”

Much like an athlete, he’d put together for the job by spending hours watching tape, reviewing his personal shaky footage of potential targets and the closest exits. 

“Certain fans really don’t like me”

Trotta could also be a sports activities fan, however many different sports activities followers are not any followers of his. 

In 2012, Trotta smashed by way of a window on the U.S. Golf Museum in New Jersey and made off with the good Ben Hogan’s trophies. In 2016, he drove to the Roger Maris Museum in North Dakota and stole the Yankees slugger’s MVP plaque. 

He by no means did hit the Hall of Fame museum in Cooperstown, however 70 miles away, on the Boxing Hall of Fame, he lifted the belts of champ Carmen Basilio. At the Harness Racing Museum in Goshen, New York, he took 14 trophies.

In October of 2014, Trotta, a self-professed Yankees fan, stole 9 of Yogi Berra’s World Series rings from the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center in New Jersey. Two MVP plaques and 7 different championship rings had been additionally taken through the heist, in response to the indictment in opposition to Trotta.

The alarm blared as Trotta ran throughout a discipline to fulfill his getaway driver. “We were a second away from getting caught,” he mentioned. 

Trotta tried all of the World Series rings on to see how they’d look. He mentioned he and his crew then lower and melted the rings inside a rural Pennsylvania storage and introduced the gold and gems to Manhattan’s Diamond District, the place a supplier paid money, no questions requested. For all that priceless Yogi Berra memorabilia, Trotta says they bought $12,000.

It was valued at over $1,000,000, in response to the indictment.

Trotta mentioned he and his alleged accomplices melted down a lot of what they stole — the stuff that was too scorching to promote. Sports memorabilia could also be a $25 billion market, however demand dries up quick when the objects are so clearly stolen. 

“A quick $12,000. As bad as that sounds, I didn’t look at it like rings,” Trotta mentioned. “It was money. It was cash.”

He now admits it was a “warped way of thinking.”

Lindsay Berra, a journalist who has devoted her profession to preserving the legacy of her beloved grandfather, mentioned she burst into tears when she heard what had develop into of the stolen rings. She mentioned it did not make sense to her then and it nonetheless baffles her now. 

“You go through all of this trouble to plan for months, and then you sell the stuff that you steal for pennies compared to what it’s actually worth? And, not to mention the fact that you’re destroying historical artifacts with significance so much beyond the gold and diamonds that they’re made of,” she mentioned. “It’s callous and disrespectful and dumb.”

From sports activities memorabilia to paintings

Trotta’s greatest job did not contain sports activities in any respect. In 2005, Scranton’s Everhart Museum was displaying Andy Warhol’s “La Grande Passion” and Jackson Pollock’s “Springs Winter.” 

“It really is a fortress,” Trotta mentioned. “But they had kind of an Achilles heel in the back of the museum. They had two glass doors.”

As an area, Trotta knew the museum nicely and was capable of navigate it at midnight for the theft. 

“Get into the museum, pitch black,” Trotta mentioned. “It’s like being in a coal mine.”

Trotta took the work from the wall, ran down the steps and out the door. He tossed them at the back of a truck and informed his getaway driver to go.

He knew Warhol and Pollock had been large offers. He thought the work could be value a whole bunch of 1000’s. Together, they had been valued at thousands and thousands. 

Where’s the loot?

Trotta and his ring of thieves did not have a purchaser lined up and it is arduous to maneuver prized paintings after a publicized theft. So Trotta mentioned he and his crew hid the artwork, together with the Christy Mathewson jersey, inside a Union, NJ house belonging to 2 of the alleged accomplices.

Last summer season, federal and state authorities introduced a sweeping indictment. Eight of Trotta’s alleged accomplices had been charged with conspiracy to commit theft of main paintings. Four have pleaded responsible. The different 4 pleaded not responsible and can face trial this yr. 

The indictment particulars the melting of Yogi Berra’s rings. It would not say what occurred to the Mathewson jersey, the Warhol, and the Pollock. Investigators declined a request for remark, citing the pending trials. 

Trotta mentioned he has no thought the place the lacking loot is immediately. 

“I don’t think it’s destroyed. Nobody would be that stupid,” he mentioned. “It’s probably gonna pop up one day.”

Where’s Trotta now?

Trotta completed serving his state sentence of greater than 4 years final June. He remains to be working nights, however now it is a job at a warehouse. He’s awaiting sentencing on a federal cost of theft of main paintings.

“I do regret hurting everybody I stole anything from,” Trotta mentioned. “The Yogi Berra family … everything he accomplished in life, OK, he didn’t need someone like me to do what I did. But it can’t take away what he did. He’s the hero. I’m not.”

Trotta was arrested on theft costs final week in reference to a police report filed in Lackawanna County. The report lists objects allegedly stolen from a home in January. The costs have been withdrawn. 

For her half, Lindsay Berra thinks her grandfather might need forgiven Trotta.

“Grandpa was such that if you owned up to your mistakes and you showed remorse, he would certainly forgive you,” she mentioned. “And I suppose I could do that, but I’m still mad that the stuff is gone.”