SF Weekly readers probably haven't forgotten about Mark Lugo, the audacious art aficionado who swiped a rare and pricy Picasso from a San Francisco gallery last year. After spending six months in jail for his crime, he's now facing more time behind bars -- in New York.
According to media reports, Lugo, 31, uttered an "I'm sorry" after a New York judge sentenced him to three years in state prison for snatching a $350,000 drawing by painter Fernand Leger from the lobby of the Manhattan Carlyle Hotel last June.
Lugo had completed his 138 days behind bars here in California in November.
While art thieves typically steal pieces for ransom, Lugo -- a polite and well-spoken restaurant man -- preferred to keep the ripped-off art, which he used to decorate his own apartment in Hoboken, N.J. It was there that investigators found $430,000 worth of stolen art, including the Leger piece, Composition with Mechanical Elements.
