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Housekeeper pleads guilty to stealing rare $3million bust of Benjamin



A housekeeper who was accused of stealing a Benjamin Franklin bust worth $3million has pleaded guilty to the crime.

Andrea Lawton, 47, told investigators that she stole the rare statue because she wanted to get her cleaning service manager fired, saying that she was upset she was forbidden to handle the piece.

The 25-pound bust is one of only four created by French artist Jean-Antoine Houdon and was made while Franklin visited Paris in 1778.






Stolen: Andrea Lawton, 47, left, first spotted the 18th century bust, right, when she was told to be careful cleaning around it because it was 'extremely valuable'


Home: She was fired on August 21 before returning three days later to grab it from Mr D'Angelo's Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, home, pictured, and run off to Elkton, Marryland, with the $3million bust stuffed in a burlap sack

Lawton, of Mobile, Alabama, was living in Philadelphia when the bust was stolen August 24. She allegedly fled to Alabama with the bust, before she was arrested Sept. 21 getting off a Greyhound bus in Elkton, Md., where she had planned to sell the sculpture.

Lawton told investigators she stole the bust because she wanted to get the owner of the cleaning service for whom she worked fired. She said crews who cleaned the home had been told it was valuable.

Lawton pleaded guilty to state burglary charges Monday. She already faces a federal prison sentence, having pleaded guilty in December to interstate transportation of stolen property. She will be sentenced on that charge May 20.

Common Pleas Judge Carolyn Carluccio did not immediately schedule sentencing on the state counts, saying she wants to know more about Lawton's background.

The bust has been broken while in Lawton's possession and is being repaired by a New York City museum.




Precious: The bust was made in 1778 by Jean-Antoine Houdon while Mr Franklin was living in Paris




‘She broke a priceless piece of artwork that was made while Benjamin Franklin was still alive,’ Montgomery County First Assistant District Attorney Kevin Steele said.

Steele said he'll ask for a ‘significant’ prison sentence because Lawton has refused to identify an alleged accomplice who actually entered the home and stole the sculpture at her direction.

Also missing is $80,000 worth of memorabilia relating to composer Victor Herbert that Lawton has told police are still in the possession of her accomplice.

Michael John, Lawton's defense attorney, said he'll argue that any state court sentence be served concurrently with her federal sentence.

‘This is all one event,’ John said, adding that Lawton is remorseful and that her guilty pleas show she's taking responsibility for her actions.

Lawton was briefly employed by Philadelphia attorney George A. D'Angelo, 85, last summer when she first spotted the 18th century bust when she was told to be careful cleaning around it because it was 'extremely valuable.'

She was fired on August 21 before returning three days later to grab it from Mr D'Angelo's Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, home and run off to Elkton, Maryland, with the bust stuffed in a burlap sack.


'It's like stealing Venus de Milo from the Louvre. What in heaven's name would you think she was going to do with it?'

George A. D'Angelo

The bust was made in 1778 by Jean-Antoine Houdon while Mr Franklin was living in Paris.


There are only three others in existence and one is held at the Musee du Louvre and another at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.


But the bust isn't the only thing missing from the home.


An autographed image of composer Victor Herbert, a conductor's baton, and a list of his music, valued at $80,000, is still missing.


Lawton claimed she never saw the picture and had no idea anything else was missing until police told her.

"I regret giving into my emotions and getting involved in this. I should have turned myself in when you called,' she told police. 'I miss my family, my husband, my daughter."

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