Feds claim Picasso painting looted by Nazis

RYAN PEARSON
Associated Press


LOS ANGELES - The federal government has claimed custody of a $10 million
Pablo Picasso painting that was stolen by Nazis during World War II and is
now at the center of a legal battle, the FBI said Tuesday.

The move allows the federal court in Los Angeles to claim jurisdiction over
a case pitting the painting's current owner, a Chicago art collector,
against the grandson of a Jewish woman who sent it to a Paris gallery for
safekeeping before fleeing Berlin.

Last Thursday, FBI agents and U.S. marshals served Marilynn Alsdorf with an
order barring her from moving the painting from a safe in her Chicago home
until a court decides who it belongs to.

The federal complaint alleges that in December 2002, Alsdorf illegally moved
the 1922 oil, known as "Femme en blanc" (Woman in White), from California to
Illinois.

Thomas Bennigson of Oakland filed a lawsuit against Alsdorf shortly before
she transported the painting. He was notified by an international art
registry that his late grandmother's painting had been put up for sale at a
Los Angeles gallery.

Federal authorities said the painting was subject to forfeiture because it
is against the law to knowingly transport stolen goods across state lines.

Bennigson's suit, filed in Los Angeles, was dismissed by a state appellate
court which found California courts did not have jurisdiction over the
matter.

That decision is now under review by the state Supreme Court, and last
week's actions by the FBI and federal prosecutors will likely boost
Bennigson's case, said his attorney, E. Randol Schoenberg.

"If they win, Tom Bennigson should win also," Schoenberg said Tuesday. "The
victims of Nazis or their heirs shouldn't have to chase stolen property from
one state to another."

A flurry of other legal actions have been filed in relation to the painting,
including one by Alsdorf in September.

Alsdorf's attorney, Roscoe Howard, declined to respond publicly to the last
week's federal complaint, saying only he would provide the government with
"an excellent and appropriate response" within 30 days.

Alsdorf and her late husband bought the artwork from a New York gallery in
1975 for $357,000. Its value is now estimated at $10 million.

Alsdorf said she was surprised by the sudden appearance of about a half
dozen federal agents at her home last Thursday morning. The agents
photographed the painting and handed her court documents saying the artwork
had been technically seized by the government.

"They were very polite," she said. "They just came in very businesslike and
left."

However, she added, "I didn't invite them to breakfast."