ROARING LION: Thief who stole Winston Churchill portrait pleads guilty

The celebrated return of the stolen portrait of Winston Churchill to its proper home, the Château Laurier’s reading lounge, almost never happened.

That’s because the Italian lawyer who successfully bid on the stolen Karsh portrait from Sotheby’s auction house was an innocent buyer. Under Italian law, he didn’t commit a crime and was under no obligation to give it back to the hotel, the rightful owner.

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In fact, the Italian lawyer was at first reluctant to give back the original print of the famed 1941 portrait of the scowling wartime leader. The “Roaring Lion” is one of the most iconic portraits and has been reproduced too often to count, notably on the British five-pound note.

The Italian lawyer did finally acquiesce to finally return the original print to the hotel.

“Had (Nicola Cassinelli) not co-operated with Canadian authorities, it might not have been possible to recuperate the portrait,” Ottawa prosecutor Suzanne Schriek told court Friday in an agreed statement of facts at Jeffrey Wood’s guilty-plea hearing.

Wood, 44, is the thief who stole the portrait sometime between Dec. 25, 2021, and Jan. 6, 2022. Those were COVID-19 times, so the historic hotel was pretty quiet and Wood was able to not only steal the famed print, but also had time to replace it with a fake complete with a forged Karsh signature.

On Friday, Wood stood up in Courtroom No. 13 before Ontario Justice Robert Wadden and pleaded guilty to theft over $5,000, forgery and trafficking. He was wearing a GPS ankle bracelet as required under his bail conditions.

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In the courthouse hallway minutes after he pleaded guilty, he said his apologies were a long-time coming for this and other stuff he felt bad about. His face turned red and he appeared overwhelmed by his crummy trip through the justice system.

On his way back in after a cigarette break, he said he felt like a criminal having to go through the big-bucks, airport-like security at the Elgin Street courthouse in Ottawa.

There was nothing sophisticated about the theft, and nobody noticed it had been stolen and replaced with a fake print. It wasn’t until the next summer, August 2022, that Bruno Lair noticed the portrait was hanging a little crooked. He should know since Lair, assistant director of engineering for the hotel, helped hang it some 26 years ago. And at 1 Rideau St. they don’t hang Karsh portraits with a wire. “I could see something was wrong. We don’t hang on wires,” he said on his way out for a cigarette break.

When Lair looked closer, he saw a wire and holes where screws had once secured the portrait to the wood-paneling of the hotel’s reading lounge. He then told the hotel general manager, who reported the theft to police.

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Wood actually used his real name and address when he negotiated with Sotheby’s auction house, and the print was sold months before Lair spotted the fake.

Sadly, the man who has worked at the hotel for more than 30 years was subjected to police questioning and a lie-detector test. (Polygraphs are not legally allowed in Canadian courts as evidence in light of significant flaws, which have led to wrongful convictions.)

Bruno Lair, known for his attention to detail and top-shelf hospitality, passed the lie-detector test with flying colours, and that meant the theft was not an inside job.

“I never thought any of them did it,” hotel general manager Geneviève Dumas once told the Ottawa Citizen, “especially Bruno. This hotel belongs to him. He’s been here for over 30 years. He loves this hotel. I just could not picture that. Never. But I could not say it until proven wrong. I was hoping it would be found so we could at least clear our employees.”

In an impact statement filed in court on Friday, Dumas expressed the deep emotional toll of the theft, notably how hotel staff were wrongly treated as suspects.

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“Members of our staff, who have long prided themselves on upholding the hotel’s legacy and its commitment to hospitality, found themselves unjustly suspected of involvement in the theft. Some employees were subjected to lie detector tests, interrogations, and intense scrutiny from law enforcement and the public.”

Dumas said the theft was awful for morale.

“The public accusations of staff members as suspects, fueled by media coverage and expert speculation, has severely impacted morale and caused distress among employees, many of whom have worked at the hotel for decades. The suspicion cast upon them strained relationships within the team and created an atmosphere of mistrust and fear,” Dumas said.

The Crown is asking for a two-year jail term for Wood, and defence lawyer Lawrence Greenspon has suggested his client serve his sentence in the community, essentially house arrest with strict conditions.

Dumas said the portrait’s legacy and its close ties to Yousuf Karsh made the theft particularly painful for not only the staff, but also the broader community who see it as a symbol of the Château Laurier.

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The general manager also said the hotel had been impacted economically, noting the costs associated with upgraded security. Surveillance video was not stored long enough at the time, nor did the portrait have any of the kinds of electronic security stickers commonly seen in books at high school libraries.

The detailed police investigation was led by Ottawa Police Service Det. Akiva Geller. Because the security video was not stored, police appealed for the public to send them photographs of the Roaring Lion. Hotel visitor and guests sent in enough photographs to determine the last time the original had been on the wall, and, days later, when the fake had replaced it.

The detective, using online searches, found that a “Roaring Lion” print had been sold at auction, and asked for help from counterparts overseas to get the auction house records. That took almost a year, and, when the detective got the records, he successfully obtained a search warrant and a production order for Wood’s computer information. This included messages to the auction house months before he shipped the print to them as well as phone records showing he called the hotel for two minutes on Christmas Eve 2021.

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The police investigation found that Wood posted a bunch of household items for sale on Facebook, and that he posted he was leaving a month before the theft. It also revealed Wood had contacted the auction house months before he stole the print, falsely claiming he acquired it from the Karsh estate.

According to the police investigation, detailed in court, Wood left for Mexico on Jan. 5, 2022.
His phone records showed he called a storage company on Dec. 27, 2021. Police later searched Wood’s storage locker, where they found and seized another online print of the Roaring Lion.

Beyond online tools, the case also relied on DNA evidence.

In Wood’s storage locker, police found and seized a few hygiene items, including a bar of Irish Spring soap and a toothbrush. A DNA swab from the toothbrush provided a match to another DNA sample lifted from the tape that Wood used to frame the fake portrait.

The iconic print was valued and insured for $20,000, but it had been damaged during either the theft, storage or shipping. So it ended up being sold for 5292 GBP ($9,399 Cdn at that time). After fees, Wood received just $4,503.85, according to his bank records.

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In a touching impact statement read into court by the prosecutor, Estrellita Karsh detailed why the portrait and the hotel had been so special. Her late husband kept a studio on the sixth floor in the early 1970s, and later in the early 1980s they moved into a suite at the landmark hotel.

“It was not just where we lived and worked. It was our home and the wonderful staff became our family,” she wrote.

When the couple moved out of the hotel, they gifted a collection of historic prints to express their gratitude for the years of hospitality. The only stipulation was that the photographs needed to be displayed in the hotel.

She said it was fitting that the Churchill portrait was displayed in the reading lounge, where she spent good times with her husband and friends. She said the Churchill portrait was especially meaningful because it had become one of the “most iconic images in photography.”

“I’m delighted that my husband’s portrait is back in the home where it belongs.”

She also thanked Geller and his team for their tenacity and for keeping her informed. She also thanked Dumas, the hotel general manager, for her determination to get the portrait returned. She also thanked the media for their “invaluable support.”

Wood, represented by defence lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, is on bail while he awaits sentencing.

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