A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : See, We Have These Pen Pals on the East Coast . . .

The East Coast branch of the Writers Guild of America has washed its hands of any responsibility for Brian M. McDevitt, the mysterious convicted felon who joined the union in New York and now heads one of its Los Angeles-based committees.

“It is within the realm of possibility that we sent you an unqualified member,” Writers Guild of America, East, President Herb Sargent recently wrote Del Reisman, his counterpart in the West. “He’s all yours.”

McDevitt, who moved to Los Angeles two years ago, drew widespread attention after news reports revealed he had been questioned in connection with the $150 million art theft in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

“I understand Mr. McDevitt can be a convincing presence, not without a certain charm and eloquence,” Sargent said in the June 18 letter. “Whoever dealt with him may have been vulnerable to those qualities, or, as is probably the case, distracted by them to the point of overlooking any doubts, questions or suspicions.”

When McDevitt applied for guild membership in 1988 he submitted as proof of his credentials a contract with a Boston company, KMH Productions, for an original screenplay titled “Illusions of Time.” He was accepted “although we had no record” of the company as a signatory to guild contracts, Sargent said.

McDevitt volunteered to become a judge in the documentary for the union’s Award Committee, but once again, no one verified his claim that he had made a film about Mexico, Sargent added.

Union records show that McDevitt reported no employment as a screenwriter during his two years as an East Coast guild member. “Incidentally, during that time, our prized faux Vermeer portrait of Brian Walton (executive director of the Writers Guild of America, West) was sliced from its frame and stolen, but we make no accusations,” added Sargent, who has written for “Saturday Night Live” and other comedy shows. A Vermeer masterpiece is one of the dozen art works missing from the Gardner museum.

One person who was not amused was McDevitt’s lawyer, Thomas E. Beatrice, who called the letter “totally inappropriate, unprofessional and not based on fact” as well as “a poor attempt at levity.”

Guild officials on both coasts refused to comment.