Suspects in $10-Million Heist Run Rings Around Authorities

The men knew exactly where to cut. They tunneled through the wall from an abandoned restaurant into Lang Antique and Estate Jewelry. They outsmarted the alarm. Then they waited. The next morning, the masked thieves disappeared, their garbage bags stuffed with as much as $10 million in handcrafted diamond rings, Art Deco bracelets and brooches studded with Burmese rubies and Kashmiri sapphires.

Last month’s daring heist near Union Square broke city records for the size of the take, surpassing even the most brazen previous jewelry store robberies here tenfold, police said.

It was not long before San Francisco police named two suspects they know all too well: Dino and Troy. The Smith brothers. Again. The tall, handsome duo with the articulate -- if arrogant -- manner had already pulled off a series of bold robberies and burglaries in a criminal past that fills more than 20,000 pages of court documents.

Younger brother Troy played pro football in Europe and favors Gucci and Armani. Dino made the San Francisco club scene, not only hanging out at the hip DV8 in its late 1980s heyday but allegedly plotting to kidnap and rob its flamboyant owner, a dyed-blond, blue-eyed Chinese American known around town as “Dr. Winkie.”

Police and prosecutors acknowledge the brothers’ smarts. They shake their heads at their cocksure personalities. And they grit their teeth at the Smiths’ nine lives. Convicted in the early 1990s of enough crimes to spend several decades in prison, the Smiths instead walked free five years ago.

Now, police have obtained arrest warrants in the Lang jewelry theft, which claimed the country’s largest collection of estate jewelry from the late 1800s through the 1940s. Named are Dino Loren Smith, 44; Troy Devin Smith, 40; and fellow felon George Turner, 43. A suspected fourth participant has not been identified. The FBI is assisting in the case. On Wednesday, Dino’s girlfriend, 30-year-old Debbie Warner, was arrested for allegedly possessing jewelry taken in the theft -- a pair of diamond and sapphire earrings.

But the Smiths are at large, the latest alleged escape act in a convoluted criminal odyssey. Victims are labeled suspect. Suspects later turn up as victims. A fortune in jewels vanishes from a jury evidence room. And, in a stroke of luck that even their appellate attorneys liken to winning the lottery, the brothers’ convictions are overturned in two separate cases.

When they first tasted freedom in 1998, the Smiths hosted a bash for their lawyers at Palomino Rotisseria Bar, a waterfront bistro with a sweeping view of the Bay Bridge. Dozens attended, including the parents of Dino and Troy. They had worked hard to keep the boys in Catholic schools and out of trouble. They had paid too many visits to California’s toughest prisons: Pelican Bay, San Quentin, Folsom. Now there was hope again.

“It was a very nice party,” said father Nolan Smith Sr., 69, a retired custodial supervisor for the city of San Francisco. “They were very positive. They said they were never going to go back to prison -- no way.”

Family members say they desperately want to believe in the brothers’ innocence. But police insist that the Smiths will be caught and convicted of their third and final strike -- possibly sending them to prison for life.

“We know who they are,” said San Francisco Police Department robbery Inspector Dan Gardner, who called on the men to turn themselves in. “They’re considered to be armed and very dangerous.”

Delinquent Influences

Nolan Sr. and Marie Smith moved their sons to San Francisco’s rough Western Addition from Texas when the boys were small. (The third and eldest, Nolan Jr., now works a computer-related job in Virginia.) Dino was quiet and difficult to reach, his father said. Troy, who now goes by Devin, was more engaged in academics and sports.

They tried to keep Troy from the delinquent influences of Dino, sending him to a Jesuit school in Napa. He spent weekends with the family of a teacher, swimming and horseback riding. But keeping the boys out of trouble proved difficult.

The story of the brothers has been pieced together through court records and interviews. Dino dropped out of high school after 11th grade. At 20, he was convicted of carrying a concealed gun in his car. Other convictions followed: false imprisonment, receiving stolen property and burglary. He gained a reputation for his ability to scale buildings and drop silently inside. Once he escaped from police custody by stashing handcuff keys in his underpants. He began using an alias: Greg West.

Troy, meanwhile, had only an attempted burglary on his record. More muscular than Dino at 6 feet 3 and 210 pounds, he played college football for two years. By 1983 he had headed to Italy to play professionally.

It all turned sour on the night of March 18, 1990, outside the home of Lawrence Lin, a self-made millionaire better known in San Francisco as “Dr. Winkie.” Winkie’s cavernous two-story nightclub, DV8, had become the city’s most popular disco. Police were tipped off that the brothers planned to wait for Winkie in his Russian Hill home, rob him, take him to the club and force him to empty its safes.

A SWAT team waited inside the house. Officers lined neighboring roofs. The Smiths arrived, parked their brown Mitsubishi and made their way to Winkie’s entryway. Then Dino and Troy bolted. Rumors have swirled for years that the brothers aborted their mission after hearing an officer inside the house flush the toilet.

When stopped by police a short distance away, the Smiths were wearing bulletproof vests and gloves. They carried assault weapons, walkie-talkies, handcuffs and 150 rounds of ammunition.

Then the tipster -- Dino’s ex-girlfriend, Kiara Fetch -- told all. In interviews that stretched for seven days, Fetch said she had become Dino’s lover and accomplice. She implicated the brothers in two dozen robberies and commercial burglaries, including a high-profile home invasion heist at the Richmond District home of Victoria Magana that had yielded $400,000 in jewelry the previous year.

Convictions in the Magana case were followed by an 87-count indictment for the Winkie conspiracy and dozens of other alleged misdeeds. Security was so tight that police helicopters circled overhead as the brothers were taken to and from prison.

In their eagerness to lock up the two, prosecutors handed out plenty of favors. Fetch was never charged in the crimes. Two other accomplices turned on the brothers in exchange for shorter sentences.

“They wanted these guys so bad that they gave out all these sweetheart deals,” said Tito Torres, one of Troy’s attorneys, who called some charges baseless.

Masters of the novel defense, the brothers argued that Magana, a convicted cocaine dealer, had staged the robbery herself, hoping to avoid payment on a $500,000 drug debt. They had showed up at Winkie’s, they said, to offer him protection.

But the Smiths were going down. On Magana, they got 18 years each. On Winkie, though acquitted on the most serious counts, Dino got 29 years, Troy 24.

But their luck shifted. The Magana case was overturned on grounds that police had misled the judge about her drug activities. A retrial led to convictions on lesser charges. Evidence envelopes stuffed with jewelry disappeared during deliberations, in one of myriad twists. The loot was never found.

Then, the Smith brothers hit the legal jackpot. The Winkie case was overturned because of the misconduct of a defense attorney.

“It was just pure luck,” Troy’s appellate attorney, Paul Couenhoven, said of the victories in two unrelated cases. “It’s highly unusual.”

This time, in August 1988, the district attorney’s office backed off, letting the brothers plead guilty to one felony count of receiving stolen property. They got time served and were free.

Dino married and had two sons, now 2 and 3 years old. He doted on the kids and stayed close to his parents.

Luxury Lifestyle

During one of Troy’s San Francisco trials, he married the daughter of a diamond dealer he met through a friend. He moved in with her and her children in their suburban Concord home and coached youth football. They lived a luxury lifestyle. He favored designer clothes, manicures and fast cars. He gambled. At times gregarious, he was also stubborn and secretive.

“I always thought Devin was mysterious,” said Candice Anderson, 18, his stepdaughter, who believes he is innocent and fears for his safety. “I’d say, ‘Where are you going?’ And he’d just say, ‘To hell if we don’t pray.’ ”

By 2000, both brothers received U.S. Coast Guard documents to work as seamen for the merchant ships that stream in and out of the Port of Oakland.

But Troy and his wife separated, divorce documents show. In seeking a restraining order, she alleged that he had grabbed her by the hair, punched her and threatened that if she cheated, “he’d make what O.J. Simpson did to Nicole look like a paper cut.”

By last fall, divorce records show, Troy owed $61,000 on his 2003 convertible Lexus and $13,000 on credit cards.

His past caught up with him. In a background check, the Coast Guard discovered his criminal history, said Anthony Davis, assistant chief of investigations. His mariner’s documents were revoked last December.

Dino’s luck also waned. On Jan. 4, 2001, he had fallen off a catwalk while working in the boiler room of the merchant vessel Matsonia. He filed a $10-million suit against Matson Navigation Co. With advance payments on a $150,000 settlement, he bought a Hummer.

Then, Matson got wind of Dino’s criminal past -- and learned of head injuries he had allegedly suffered in jail. By the time the case was completed a little more than a month ago, Dino had been promised only $10,000. The Coast Guard had revoked his right to work. The union health insurance he had obtained for his sons had lapsed. He had also taken up with Debbie Warner. A real estate agent pregnant with Dino’s baby, she was hauled into jail Wednesday, accused of possessing jewelry stolen in the Lang job.

“I don’t know if they’re guilty or not guilty,” the brothers’ father said with a slight Southern lilt, his eyes pained behind gold-rimmed glasses. “I just know that, when they came out they were working hard.... I don’t know what happened.”

Police believe they know: At 11:30 p.m. on April 6, four men entered the vacant Rumpus Restaurant near Union Square. They cut a hole in the wall leading to Lang’s. The alarm sounded. Police were summoned. But officers saw no signs of entry when they peered inside.

By then, the thieves had disabled the security cameras. They hid in the bathroom, which was free of motion detectors. The alarm reset itself. When four employees arrived at work 10 hours later, the bathroom door burst open. Armed, masked and gloved, the men forced the workers to open the safes. They bound them with flex-cuffs and duct tape. The thieves were articulate, polite and cautious.

“Don’t worry,” one quipped to his victim. “Think of the children in Iraq.”

A woman believed to be keeping watch outside gave a “time” signal over a walkie-talkie. With that, the Lang collection was gone.

Missing Rings

Missing are 350 diamond engagement rings. Also gone are bracelets, pins and lavalieres. Many of them are collector’s items, some dating to the late 1800s, said Lang’s owner Mark Zimmelman, who also owns upscale Frances Klein Antique and Estate Jewels in Beverly Hills.

The handcrafted pieces are “the kind that Norma Desmond would have worn in ‘Sunset Boulevard,’ ” said Gardner, the robbery inspector.

When police implicated the Smiths, Zimmelman said he was not surprised in the least.

More than a dozen years ago, the jewelry store owner bought some of Magana’s stolen jewelry from Dino. Zimmelman, who maintains he never knew the goods were hot, was charged with fencing stolen property. He cooperated with police, testifying against the brothers.

“San Francisco is not L.A. It’s a small town,” said Zimmelman, 47, who believes the brothers targeted his store as payback. “Even the crooks can’t get out of town. They just can’t seem to stretch their border.”

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Times special correspondent Imran Vittachi contributed to this report.