His dalliance with art-thievery is over.
A European fashion publicist will serve the next two weeks in jail — and then be deported back to Greece — after admitting today that he “stupidly” stole a $150,000 Salvatore Dali watercolor off the wall of an Upper East Side gallery.
“It was a really stupid thing to do,” Phivos Istavrioglou, 29, admitted in pleading guilty to yanking “Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio” off the wall of the Venus Over Manhattan gallery on Madison Avenue in June.
Istavrioglou brazenly shoved the 1949 painting in a bag and slipped out of the gallery — but once back in Greece a few days later he got cold feet. He rolled the painting into a tube and mailed it back, undamaged.
Detectives lured Istavrioglou into returning to New York with a bogus job offer from another art gallery — and busted him Saturday as he walked off of an American Airlines flight from Milan.
Prosecutor Jordan Arnold had asked that the thief get four months jail. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon ordered instead that he remain in custody only until his March 12 sentencing — after which he’ll be transferred to the custody of immigration officials.
As part of today’s deal, Istavrioglou agreed to have his family pay $9,100 restitution prior to the sentencing date. The money will to be split among the Manhattan DA’s office, the NYPD, and the Chubbs insurance company to cover the cost of their investigations — including the cost of art experts who assessed the value and authenticity of the returned painting.
“It was a moment of insanity in an otherwise sane life,” his lawyer, David Cohen, explained after court.