It wasn't your typical smash-and-grab burglary: The trial begins for three men accused of stealing a toilet worth more than its weight in gold. The one-of-a-kind 18-carat gold toilet was swiped in under five minutes from Blenheim Palace, the English mansion where Winston Churchill was born, in the predawn hours of Sept. 14, 2019, a prosecutor told jurors Monday. Julian Christopher said in Oxford Crown Court that it was an "audacious raid." He alleges one man on trial was involved in stealing it and the other two helped to sell the spoils. The toilet has never been recovered but is believed to have been cut up and sold, reports the AP.
The satirical work, titled "America" by Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan, poked fun at excessive wealth. It weighed just over 215 pounds and was valued at $3.5 million at the time. One of the defendants, Michael Jones, cased the palace twice in the weeks before the theft, Christopher said. Visitors to the exhibition could book a three-minute appointment to use the toilet. Both times, Jones took photos of the window that was later smashed to break in. The second time he also took photos inside the bathroom, including of the lock on the door.
"There can be no doubt that he was carrying out reconnaissance for the burglary ... that night," Christopher said. "That would be enough to make him guilty of count one of burglary." But Jones was also probably among the group of five men who crashed through the wooden gates of the palace before dawn the next morning in two stolen vehicles, Christopher said. They pulled up to the front steps, where they smashed the window Jones had photographed. They made quick work of breaking down the bathroom door and removed the golden throne, leaving water gushing from the pipes that caused considerable damage to the 18th-century building.
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Jones was in cahoots with James Sheen, who was part of both the burglary and the sale of the gold, Christopher said. Sheen, 40, previously pleaded guilty to burglary, conspiracy, and transferring criminal property. Sheen then worked to broker a deal with Fred Doe and Bora Guccuk. In a series of texts, he referred to the loot as a "car," but Christopher said he was actually talking about the gold. Doe, 36, and Guccuk, 41, are charged with one count of conspiracy to transfer criminal property. All the defendants have pleaded not guilty.
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