Stolen Property

The Sheriff's Department has recovered a stolen 850-pound emerald worth an estimated $370 million, officials said Friday. The stone, known as the Bahia Emerald, was unearthed in Brazil and is believed to be the second-largest stone of its kind, according to the Sheriff's Department. The gem, once auctioned on EBay, has also been the focus of numerous lawsuits. The gem was stolen from a secured vault in South El Monte in September and later warehoused in Las Vegas, said Lt. Thomas Grubb of the Major Crimes Bureau.

When Westminster police responded to a routine disturbance call last week, they stumbled onto a herd of wicker reindeer in the living room, strings and strings of Christmas lights -- some plugged in, others just tossed around the house -- a few faux Christmas trees, several snowmen and one too many inflatable Santa Claus figures. It all seemed just a little much, officers thought, even for the most devoted holiday fan. Then they remembered the theft reports.

A painting forcibly auctioned by Germany's Nazi government should remain with the estate of a late Jewish art dealer who lost it when his gallery was liquidated, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The ruling by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston blocks an attempt by German baroness Maria-Luise Bissonnette to recoup the painting "Girl From the Sabine Mountains," appraised between $67,000 and $94,000. The painting is believed to be a work of Franz Xaver Winterhalter, a 19th century artist famous for painting Queen Victoria, the czar of Russia and other European nobles.

Less than a week after it went missing, the bronze Virgin Mary statue marking the front of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church is back. The 4- to 5-foot figure was found in the yard of a Tustin woman who called police about it Wednesday morning. The woman, returning from a trip, found the statue on her lawn and alerted police after reading a newspaper account of the theft. The statue went missing sometime between the evening of Nov. 14 and the morning of Nov. 15. The woman's teenage son apparently had friends visiting the house last weekend; at some point during the get-together, the statue arrived in the yard, said Newport Beach Police Lt. Craig Fox. The woman, who police said asked to remain anonymous, did not realize the figure was stolen at first, so it stood in the middle of her lawn for several days.

Leaders of a Hindu temple are offering a reward for the return of religious statues and other objects stolen from their sanctuary about two weeks ago. Three large copper and bronze statues of Hindu gods that weigh about 150 pounds each, two smaller statues, two musical instruments and 35 oil lamps were taken during the burglary, according to temple leader Rajah Nalliah. The Hindu community is offering a $1,000 reward for the items' return, he said. Covina police urged anyone with information about the sacred objects to contact them at (626)

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has sent a painting by cubist Fernand Leger back to the heirs of a Jewish art collector in France, after concluding it had been stolen by the Nazis during World War II. The museum had owned the 1911 Leger painting "Smoke Over Rooftops" since 1961. But after a decade of detective work, the institute decided to return it to the heirs of noted Parisian collector Alphonse Kann, who died in 1948. "Having researched this to the end of the road, we decided we had to return the painting; it was the right thing to do," Kaywin Feldman, director of the institute, told the Star Tribune for a story published Thursday.

Brazilian police said Monday they have found a stolen Picasso print, the last of four artworks to be recovered following a museum heist in June. On June 12, three robbers stole Picasso's "Minotaur, Drinker and Women," along with the Picasso print "The Painter and the Model," from Sao Paulo's Estacao Pinacoteca Museum. Thieves also took the paintings "Women at the Window" by Emiliano DiCavalcanti and "Couple" by Lasar Segall. The artworks are estimated to be worth $630,000.

After deliberating only a few hours, an Orange County jury Monday convicted a Long Beach man of murder in the death of a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy who was killed in a traffic collision after swerving out of the path of a stove -- allegedly stolen from a construction site -- that tumbled out of the man's pickup.

A freeway overpass in the San Fernando Valley may seem an unlikely place to discover buried treasure, but that's exactly where authorities struck pay dirt this week when police received a handwritten map that led them to a cache of stolen valuables by the 118 Freeway. Police say the hot goods -- mainly expensive jewelry -- may be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

An $8-million painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat has been located in a Manhattan warehouse after apparently being smuggled out of Brazil, federal prosecutors said. Prosecutors filed papers Wednesday seeking to seize the 1982 painting, called "Hannibal," in an effort to help Brazilian authorities claim it. U.S. authorities said they found the painting in an Upper East Side warehouse in November. It wasn't clear who brought it into the U.S., but prosecutors said it arrived via John F. Kennedy International Airport.