Jail warden admits role in Dali theft

NEW YORK -- The crime was ... well, it was surreal.\nOn an island inhabited by 14,000 accused criminals, a $250,000 Salvador Dali sketch disappeared during a midnight fire drill, replaced by a fake. And the people responsible were not the inmates, but four prison officials, authorities said.\nLast week, a former assistant deputy warden admitted his role in the March 1 robbery at the Rikers Island jail and implicated his co-workers in the role-reversing rip-off. The plot's alleged mastermind and the two other members of the "Dali gang" are all due in court this month.\nMitchell Hochhauser, 40, claimed the irreplaceable Dali ink and pencil sketch was destroyed by a skittish co-defendant although his claim is up for debate.\nEven the Hochhauser guilty plea produced strange reactions: defense attorney Joseph Tacopina, representing alleged ringleader Benny Nuzzo, was just as pleased as the prosecution.\n"This is a classic example of a witness with a motive to implicate another person," Tacopina said a day later.\nAccording to Hochhauser, the plot was conceived in "The Bodega" a snack room used by the guards. He says Nuzzo's proposal initially elicited laughter, and with good reason.\nThe sketch depicting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was a jailhouse fixture since 1965, when the self-promoting artist with the sprawling mustache planned a visit. Dali instead called in sick, sending a note that promised "a wonderful gift for the prisoners."\nVoila! He zipped off the crucifixion sketch in his Manhattan hotel room, and it was placed in the prison dining room -- a pearl amidst crime.\n"It's a pretty strange story all around," said Peter Tush, curator of education at the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Fla. "It was unusual for Dali to just give things away. He was not the most generous artist."\nFor 38 years, the art was virtually undisturbed; it was moved just once, in 1981, to the jail's lobby because prison officials feared an inmate might damage or destroy it.\nBut it was safe, authorities said, until March 1.\nHochhauser and Nuzzo were in charge that night, working with officers Timothy Pina and Greg Sokol. The two bosses staged a fire drill as a distraction while the two officers swiped the sketch from its display case, authorities said.\nThe foursome hoped for a big payday, officials said but other officers noticed the fake almost immediately. The suspects were under arrest by mid-June. By then, an increasingly nervous Nuzzo had already destroyed the sketch, Hochhauser said in court.\nHochhauser, a 19-year correction veteran, agreed to resign and accept a one- to three-year jail term in his plea agreement. Sokol and Pina, both suspended without pay after their arrests, have October court dates.\nSokol, who cooperated with authorities and taped conversations with the other three, could enter a plea Oct. 21.\nNuzzo is expected in court on Halloween.\nCity officials held out hope the missing Dali might be returned. But defense attorney Tacopina, without elaborating, hinted that the sketch was possibly a phony.\n"I have some question whether that one was the real Dali," Tacopina said. "There's some evidence about that, but I'll deal with that at trial"