Trucker Who Swiped Basquiat From Crate Pleads Guilty

As gas prices reach unspeakably lofty altitudes, what is a trucker to do when he is contractually bound to transport little clay figures engaged in Kama Sutra-like acts from JFK to Kansas City? He steals a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting worth $1.5 million is what he does - lifting it right out of a crate like Hugh Hefner does when he receives a new girlfriend, but for 35 year old Anthony Porcelli Jr., unlike Hugh, there was no assembly required, no little plastic nipples to screw on or system of valves and pulleys to install -- Anthony merely tore open a crate containing the untitled painting and carted it off to a trucking warehouse in Elizabeth, New Jersey, presumably to be sold at a later date after the heat had died down.

Porcelli was identified taking the Basquiat via a surveillance camera, pled guilty, and faces one to three years in the pen. However, in lieu of making license plates and washing inmate gym clothes, the prosecutor in the case persuaded the judge to have Porcelli serve his time drawing crude objects and faces with fellow inmates judging his work for artistic merit, paying special attention to the use of perspective. He will also Basquiat-like, have tons of chilly heroin pumped into his veins and have to make conversation with a sloppily dressed albino in a blond wig hired to portray Andy Warhol who just so happens to be Hugh Hefner sans bathrobe.

Truck driver pleads guilty in theft of Basquiat painting Newsday AP