The home-electronics installer who stole more than $1 million in priceless books from the widow of a Vanderbilt heir was carted off to prison like a craven common crook this morning — insisting despite a mountain of evidence and his own guilty plea that he was not really a thief.
Timothy Smith, 41, will spend only between one and three years in prison, a sweetheart deal he earned by returning the precious tomes, which included a $500,000 first edition F. Scott Fitzgerald signed by the author.
Many of the books — including several first edition Fitzgeralds — had been swiped right off the extensive bookshelves of the Fifth Avenue mansion of Susan Burden, widow of the late Carter Burden, a collector of 20th Century American literature.
Still, Smith continued to claim today, as he did when he was busted almost two years ago, that the books had been left to rot in a basement and that he’d had “Alba the maid’s” permission to take them.
Clinging to what assistant district attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon called that “total fabrication” almost cost him his good deal today.
By waffling about his guilt, Smith could have invalidated his plea. And as a thief topping the $1 million level, he could have been sentenced to as much as 25 years prison.
“I took books in good faith with the understanding that I had permission and not with malicious intent,” he insisted from the defense table.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon then reminded Smith that he’d pleaded guilty to stealing property worth in excess of $1 million, and asked him, “You’re saying you didn’t steal these books?”
“My statement was that I took the books without permission” from Susan Burden, Smith hedged.
“But that’s stealing,” the judge responded. “Isn’t it?”
“I took them in the presence of someone who gave me permission,” Smith hedged again.
“I don’t want to go back and forth,” the judge said, proceeding with the sentencing.
Defense lawyer Barry Bohrer, also strove to tidy up Smith’s reputation, telling the judge that subsequent to Smith’s guilty plea an investigation into just how much the books were worth has unearthed “changed circumstances and new facts.”
Inconsistencies exist among the various lists of the books in question — including lists describing what went missing and what was to be donated by Burden to the Morgan Library, Bohrer said. One of the lists of books “might have been destroyed or deleted from a computer file,” the lawyer said.
Ultimately, the value of the books does not add up to $1 million, he added. And there remains “some confusion” over what permission Smith may have thought he had to take the books, the lawyer said.
That’s an “amusing” take on the facts, the prosecutor responded.
“Mr. Smith was in no way a credible, kind-hearted guy who got himself caught up in something he was confused about,” she told the judge.
Smith has consistently lied in his attempts to dodge responsibility, she said. “First he tried to foist responsibility off onto Mrs. Burden, claiming ‘Yes Susan personally told me to get rid of the books.’
“Then he tried to foist blame onto ‘Alba the maid,’ saying she told him to discard the books. We’re talking about books — one of which was worth a half a million dollars — stolen off of Mrs. Burden’s bookshelf.”
Smith claimed he wanted to donate the books but was “pressured” to sell them — more lies, as revealed by emails of the sale negotiations, the prosecutor said.
“I have plenty more” Faulkners, the eager Smith had boasted in the emails at one point, the prosecutor told the judge, adding that Smith had a history of theft accusations by previous employers.
Burden, a 62-year-old philanthropist and psychologist who had trusted Smith in her home as an electronics system installer, has declined to speak about the case.