14 Years in Prison Is Too Much : Like the Van Gogh, Defendant Vanished

When some Los Angeles jurors returned this week with a verdict in an art theft case, they found that more than a once-stolen Vincent Van Gogh painting had vanished.

Defendant Ronald Stanley Gerson, 38, who had been free on $50,000 bail, despite previous armed robbery and grand theft convictions, himself disappeared from the downtown Criminal Courts Building on Wednesday afternoon, shortly before the verdict was originally to have been delivered.

Gerson, however, was curious enough to telephone the court for the results Thursday--just before the judge finally took the Superior Court jury’s decision in which the Canoga Park man was found guilty, in absentia, of burglary and grand theft.

‘Very Bizarre’

He was charged in the 1984 theft of the valuable Van Gogh from a mansion in Holmby Hills.

“I’ve had them flee before, but not call,” the prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. William A. Crisci, said. “It’s bizarre. It’s very bizarre.”

Defense attorney Douglas Young, meanwhile, asserted that he had advised his client to return to court.

” . . . But I don’t think I’d have (returned) if I’d be given 14 years (in prison). . . . Something about that, that interrupts your life.”

Gerson, who was found guilty of having taken the painting “Bridge Over the Seine” from the luxurious home of real estate developer Ernest Herman, faces a maximum sentence of 14 years when, or if, he is caught.

During his courtroom phone call, placed from an undisclosed location, the delinquent defendant conversed for 10 minutes with both Young and Crisci--making known, in no uncertain terms, that he would not be returning.

Nor had he changed his mind Thursday night, when he told The Times he planned to remain away “forever.” The United States, he said--in a telephone call--”is a big country.”

Gerson, again calling from an undisclosed location, said he made his hasty departure from the courtroom Wednesday because Crisci and the two arresting officers “knew the verdict before I did” and that the prosecutor had told him sarcastically, “The verdict just came in. Not guilty. You can go home now.”

So, Gerson said, he did.

Well, he admitted, he didn’t exactly go home.

“I have made every court appearance,” Gerson said. “I was waiting to hear the verdict. It was given to me in a laughing, smirking way by the court reporter, by Mr. Crisci and by the arresting officers involved.

“I realize that a wrong was done, but there is no reason for anyone to berate me or make fun of me. The situation I’m in . . . I’m facing a major felony charge. I feel I shouldn’t have to take verbal abuse.”

Gerson’s bail bondsman, William Walker, said he understood that a bailiff had emerged from the jury room to confide the verdict to the officers and to Crisci “in front of a bunch of people.” That, Walker said, “made him (Gerson) run.”

Efforts to reach Crisci on Thursday night for comment on the allegations by Gerson and Walker were unsuccessful.

Shortly before the verdict was read Thursday afternoon, Crisci told Judge Richard C. Hubbell about his dialogue with Gerson:

“I said, ‘Get into court,’ ” the prosecutor told the judge. “And he used some four-letter profanity having to do with my heritage and perhaps . . . intimating that my mother and father weren’t married and I was a progeny of that ill-conceived conception.

“And he also said (profanity), I’m not coming in.”

Replied Hubbell: “I take it then that we may proceed pursuant to . . . the Penal Code.”

The judge, who on Wednesday had issued a bench warrant for Gerson’s arrest and had postponed the verdict reading until Thursday afternoon, then called in the jury.

The panel’s decision, ending the three-week trial, was delivered with an empty green chair where the defendant would normally sit.

Gerson was charged with having posed as a gas company employee in July, 1984, to gain access to the mansion, where the 19th-Century painting was hanging in a study.

The Van Gogh, valued at between $300,000 and $800,000, was recovered a month later during an FBI-Los Angeles Police Department sting operation at the Century Plaza Hotel in which five men, including Gerson, were arrested in a hotel room.

Alleged Drug Deal

Authorities said the thieves were attempting to sell the work to New York drug dealers for $125,000 in cash and 20 kilos of cocaine, worth an estimated $6 million if sold on the street.

Gerson, himself, was nabbed by accident, trial testimony showed.

When Los Angeles Police Officer Ed Burrow, having already helped arrest other suspects, decided to use the hotel room’s locked bathroom, Burrow picked the lock and began relieving himself. Suddenly, however, he was interrupted by a voice coming from the shower.

“My hands are up, don’t shoot,” said the voice, which turned out to be Gerson’s.

During Thursday’s courtroom phone conversation, Young reported to Crisci that Gerson said he would turn himself in if he was sentenced to no more than six years in prison.

Crisci, however, said he would make no deal. Rather, the prosecutor took the receiver and told the defendant to show up in court. Crisci later said he would file a new felony count against Gerson for fleeing, which carries a maximum three-year term.

Four Pleaded Guilty

Gerson’s co-defendants--Richard Alan Rose, Thomas Dean Sullivan, Edward Tarrats and John Simms, all Los Angeles-area residents--have pleaded guilty to various charges in the art theft.

While three of them are now serving prison time, Simms remains at large, having fled a courtroom himself on his sentencing date last May.

The defendants, though, are not the only ones who have had trouble making their court appearances.

Late Thursday afternoon, Hubbell issued--but ordered held until today--a warrant for Young’s arrest for leaving the court Thursday before the jury announced its decision on several issues concerning Gerson’s prior convictions.

Hubbell said the defense attorney would be arrested if he does not appear in court this afternoon.