Chauffeur Held in Theft of Rare Books, Heirlooms

NEW YORK —  Police today said they cracked an inside robbery scheme involving the theft of $750,000 worth of rare books and manuscripts, antique guns and other heirlooms from a sprawling Long Island estate of John Schiff, brother of former New York Post publisher Dorothy Schiff.

Acting on a tip from two famous New York auction houses, officers arrested Fernando Gomez, 37, Tuesday night. Gomez, a chauffeur, had attempted to sell the precious works to Sotheby’s and the guns to Christie’s, but the auction houses alerted the FBI, police said.

The scheme involved more than 100 rare books collected by Schiff, a retired investment banker. They included works by Charlotte, Emily and Patrick Bromwell Bronte and an original manuscript of Webster and Erving Cogswell’s Autobiographies, police said.

The collection included 19 volumes of the Cogswell Collection with original drawings by the Old Masters.

Schiff, 82, kept the collection at his 400-acre estate in the exclusive Long Island community of Oyster Bay, his son David said.

Police sought a former cook at the estate, Berta Cespedes, 42, also of the Bronx, for questioning. They said she may have helped Gomez, her common-law husband who worked elsewhere as a chauffeur, gradually steal the masterpieces over a period of about a year.

David Schiff said the heists apparently took place on weekends when Gomez visited Cespedes, who worked on a three-person household staff. At least one of the other workers is a nurse who cares for the elderly Schiff, described by his son as “not a well man.”