Conviction in museum thefts

The husband of a late curator at Russia’s most famous museum was convicted Thursday in the theft of dozens of art objects and sentenced to five years in prison.

Nikolai Zavadsky also was ordered by Dzerzhinsky District Court to pay $283,000 in damages to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, said Judge Anzhelika Morozova, who presided at the trial.

State Hermitage Museum announced last July that 221 items, including jewelry, religious icons, silverware and richly enameled objects worth about $5 million, had been stolen.

Zavadsky confessed that he and his wife were involved in the thefts, which took place over several years. Zavadsky’s late wife, Larisa, died suddenly at her workplace shortly after a routine inventory began last fall.

Police so far have recovered more than 30 of the missing items.