Over the decades, he stole millions of dollars worth of sports memorabilia and art from museums. However, the traffic stop would end Thomas Trotta's robbery career.
In 2019, Trotta was pulled over for erratic driving outside Scranton, Pennsylvania. Police found gloves and other evidence in Trotta's trunk, linking him to the 2016 theft of an ATM taken from a grocery store using a snowplow.
From there, police linked him to a series of residential burglaries. While in his custody, he began giving investigators details of unsolved museum robberies, including the theft of Yogi Berra's World Series ring and Andy Warhol art. He also let go of longtime crew members, including lookouts and getaway drivers. Instead, Trotta received a reduced sentence.
“How we justified it was, 'Hey, we're not hurting anyone,'” Trotta said in an interview. “But I never thought about being in prison for 51 months. Emotionally, I destroyed people. I know that now.”
How did Trotta's criminal activities begin?
Trotta, 48, grew up outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He was a sports fan, especially baseball. His grandparents took him to Yankees games.
Trotta also grew up as a thief. He said he still believed in Santa when he started stealing.
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Trotta remembers going on fishing trips with his father, and when they couldn't catch any fish, they would sneak into the hatchery at 3 a.m. and scoop up salmon in their nets.
Trotta then ran with friends from the neighborhood, who eventually became his accomplices. He said they quickly progressed from robbing payphones to home invasions. Theft became his full-time job. Combining the two passions, Trotta carried out his first sports memorabilia heist in 1999.
An exhibit dedicated to Hall of Fame pitcher Christy Mathewson, who won 373 games, was opened at Keystone University in Factoryville, Pennsylvania. It featured a jersey commemorating the 1905 World Series. The woman running the exhibit was able to see visitors, including Trotta, up close. She even took the jersey out of the display case and let Trotta hold it.
“I immediately felt dizzy,” Trotta said. “I'm trying to figure out who to call and who to help me because it's only going to be on display for one day.”
He returned later that night to retrieve the jersey, but after stealing it, he had to try it on, Trotta said.
“I was shocked by the fact that he wore it during the game,” Trotta said. “I'm an avid baseball fan.”
Over time, Trotta developed M.O. He visited the venues he planned to target as if he were a tourist on a family trip, sometimes accompanied by his nieces and nephews. He photographed the target object, paying attention to nearby doors and windows. Trotta said no one suspected he had a museum collection.
“For the first time in a million years, I look stupid, I know it,” Trotta said. “You don't look like a criminal at all.”
Like any athlete, he prepared for the job by watching tape for hours and reviewing shaky footage showing potential targets and the nearest exits.
“Some fans really hate me.”
Trotta may be a sports fan, but many other sports fans aren't his fans.
In 2012, Trotta broke through a window at the United States Golf Museum in New Jersey and made off with the great Ben Hogan's trophy. In 2016, he drove to the Roger Maris Museum in North Dakota and stole the Yankees slugger's MVP plaque.
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Although he never set foot in Cooperstown's Hall of Fame and Museum, he hoisted champion Carmen Basilio's belt 110 miles away at the Boxing Hall of Fame. At his Harness Racing Museum in Goshen, New York, he won his 14 trophies.
In October 2014, Trotta, a self-proclaimed Yankees fan, stole nine of Yogi Berra's World Series rings from the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center in New Jersey. Two MVP shields and seven other championship rings were also stolen during the robbery, the newspaper said. indictment Battle against Trotta.
As Trotta ran across a field to meet the fleeing driver, an alarm sounded. “I almost got caught in a second,” he said.
Trotta tried on all the World Series rings to see how they looked. He said he and his crew then cut and melted the rings inside a garage in rural Pennsylvania and transported the gold and jewelry to Manhattan's Diamond District, where dealers paid them cash, no questions asked. According to Trotta, the total value of the valuable Yogi Berra memorabilia is $12,000.
It was worth more than $1 million, according to the indictment.
Trotta said he and his alleged accomplices melted much of what they stole – stuff that was too hot to sell. Sports memorabilia may be a $25 billion market, but demand quickly dries up when it's clearly stolen items.
“Roughly $12,000. It might sound bad, but I didn't look at it like a ring,” Trotta said. “It was money. It was cash.”
He now admits it was a “warped way of thinking”.
Journalist Lindsey Vera, who has dedicated her career to preserving her beloved grandfather's legacy, said she burst into tears when she heard what happened to the stolen ring. It didn't make sense at the time, and she said it still baffles her.
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“You spend months planning and then sell what you stole for pennies on the dollar compared to its actual value? And not to mention the fact that you're destroying a much more important historical artifact.” It’s made of gold and diamonds,” she said. “It's insensitive, disrespectful and stupid.”
From sports memorabilia to artwork
Trotta's biggest job had nothing to do with sports. In 2005, the Everhart Museum in Scranton exhibited Andy Warhol's “Grand Passion'' and Jackson Pollock's “Springs Winter.''
“It's a real fortress,” Trotta said. “But the back of the museum was something of an Achilles' heel. He had two glass doors.”
As a local, Trotta knows the museum well and was able to navigate it in the dark to avoid theft.
“Go into the museum in the dark,” Trotta said. “It's like being in a coal mine.”
Trotta picked up the painting from the wall, ran down the stairs and out the door. He throws them into the back of a truck and tells the fleeing driver to go.
He knew Warhol and Pollock were big names. He thought the painting might be worth hundreds of thousands. Together they were worth millions of dollars.
Where is the loot?
Trotta and his band of thieves do not have a buyer in mind, making it difficult to move valuable art once the theft becomes public. So Trotta said he and his crew hid the artwork, along with Christy Mathewson's jersey, inside the Union, New Jersey, home of two of his alleged accomplices.
Last summer, federal and state authorities announced a full indictment. Trotta's eight alleged accomplices were charged with conspiracy to commit major art theft. Four people pleaded guilty. The remaining four have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to stand trial this year.
The indictment details the melting of Yogi Berra's ring. What happened to Mathewson's jersey, Warhol, and Pollock is not written. Investigators declined requests for comment because the case is pending.
Trotta said he has no idea where the missing loot is today.
“I don't think it's being destroyed. No one would be that stupid,” he said. “It will probably show up at some point.”
Where is Trotta now?
Trotta finished serving more than four years in state prison last June. He still works night shifts, but now in a warehouse. He is awaiting sentencing from the federal government on charges of major art theft.
“I really regret hurting everyone that I stole,” Trotta said. “The Yogi Berra family… everything he accomplished in life, OK, he didn't need someone like me to do what I did. But to take away what he did. I can't. He's a hero. I'm not.”
Trotta was arrested last week on theft charges in connection with a police report filed in Lackawanna County. The report lists items allegedly stolen from the residence in January. The charges were dropped.
Lindsey Berra thinks her grandfather may have forgiven Trotta.
“My grandpa was the kind of person who would forgive you if you admitted your mistakes and showed remorse,” she says. “I think she can do that, but she's still upset that things are gone.”
