The person behind a world artwork heist that started in Ottawa goes to jail.
A while between Christmas 2021 and early January 2022, Jeffrey Wooden stole the world-famous portrait of a scowling, wartime Winston Churchill, titled The Roaring Lion, from Ottawa’s Château Laurier resort, changing it with a faux.
In March, Wooden pleaded responsible to forgery, theft over $5,000 and trafficking property obtained by crime. Three extra fees had been withdrawn.
On the Ottawa Courthouse on Monday, Wooden was sentenced to 2 years much less a day in custody.
The celebrated photographer Yousuf Karsh, a longtime resident of the Château Laurier, gave the portrait to the resort in 1998. It has now been returned to the resort following its disappearance, and the worldwide hunt that adopted.
Earlier than stealing the portrait, Wooden had reached out to Sotheby’s public sale home about promoting a print of The Roaring Lion from the Karsh property. He additionally posted on social media about his plans to depart Canada, and days earlier than the theft he positioned a two-minute telephone name to the resort.
The framed portrait had been affixed to a wall with particular bolts that required particular data and distinctive instruments to unfasten.
The crime went unnoticed till the next August when a resort workers member noticed one thing amiss with the substitute portrait.
The theft made worldwide headlines and launched an Ottawa police investigation spanning a number of international locations and two continents.
Investigators finally decided that a person in Genoa, Italy, had bought the portrait by means of a London public sale home.
The customer had no concept he had acquired a cherished piece of Canadian historical past — not to mention a stolen one — and when contacted by police, he rapidly agreed to return it.
