Aging mobster stays mum on possible role in $500M Gardner art heist

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A recent brush with death didn't yield the confession investigators had hoped for from a Connecticut mobster suspected of knowing the whereabouts of $500 million worth of masterworks stolen from a Boston museum decades ago.

If Robert Gentile knows anything about the art taken in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, he proved last month he's willing to take it to the grave.

The 80-year-old "Bobby the Cook" Gentile, who is in federal custody awaiting trial on gun charges, was "on his death bed" in September when his attorney rushed to a South Carolina hospital to ask him -- one last time -- the question no one has answered to date.

"I said, 'If you've ever had the paintings, give them up.' But he said there's no paintings," his attorney, Ryan McGuigan, told FoxNews.com Tuesday.

"I believe him, but the FBI doesn't," McGuigan said. "There are a lot of people who don't believe him and they are very intelligent people. I disagree with them, respectfully."

McGuigan flew to the South Carolina hospital, he said, because he was "open to the possibility that my client might be withholding something."

"If there was ever a chance to say it, that was it," he said. "I do certainly know the importance of this art to humanity."

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: THE GREATEST ART HEIST OF ALL TIME

What role, if any, Gentile played in the most infamous art heist in American history is unclear. His health has improved, and he is still not talking.

It was just after midnight on March 18, 1990, when two men dressed as police officers buzzed the side door at the Boston museum and claimed they were there to investigate a disturbance.

A little more than an hour later, the men left with what is said to be the most valuable collection of stolen artwork in history: $580 million worth of famous works, including Rembrandt's only seascape, "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee," and Vermeer's "The Concert," a masterpiece valued at more than $200 million.

The two men who broke into the museum -- hours after Boston celebrated St. Patrick's Day -- had "inside knowledge" of the museum's surveillance system, FBI Special Agent Geoff Kelly previously told FoxNews.com. 

The suspects, described as white men in their 30s, convinced two inexperienced security guards that they were responding to a call, before overtaking the guards and tying them up.

They spent 81 minutes inside the museum, walking the dark hallways before making their way to the Dutch Room, where the most valuable works hung.The pair smashed glass and used box cutters to remove the masterpieces from their frames. In all, 13 priceless items were taken: three paintings by Rembrandt including, "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee," five drawings by Degas, and Vermeer's "The Concert" -- said to be the most valuable stolen painting in the world.

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