Who's Who In ArtCops I

BURT WOLF

Burt is a journalist, writer, television producer and host of the Public Television series TRAVELS & TRADITIONS.

Since 1982, he has produced over 4,000 segments for Cable News Network (CNN), 800 segments for ABC (the American Broadcasting Company), 125 half-hour programs for the travel division of The Discovery Channel, and 350 half hours for Public Television. The New York Times described his programs as “the best food, travel, and cultural history shows on television.” His reports have won awards in the United States, Europe and Asia. They are shot entirely on-location throughout the world.

His cultural history programs have included: The History and Future of Shopping; a twenty-part series on Sacred Pilgrimage Sites; and a five-part series on the History of Immigration to the United States.

Burt’s programs are broadcast on Public Television to 90% of the television homes in the United States, then translated into Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Mandarin and Korean and syndicated to an international audience of over 100 million.

During his 35 years as a journalist, Burt has written or edited more than 60 books. For a number of years he authored a weekly column for The Washington Post and was a regular contributor to the online publication Salon.com.

CHRIS MARINELLO

Chris Marinello is the CEO of Art Recovery Group, offering art recovery, dispute resolution and due diligence services through its two divisions: Art Recovery International and the ArtClaim Database.

An Italian-American who lives in London, since 2006, he helped recover more than $400 million of stolen art and antiquities, including art that was taken by the Nazis in World War II and treasures pillaged from Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt.

Prior to founding Art Recovery Group he was General Counsel and Executive Director of the Art Loss Register (ALR).

ROBERT WITTMAN

Robert King “Bob” Wittman is a highly decorated Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. From 1988 to 2008, he was assigned to the Philadelphia Field Division. As a result of his specialized training in art, Wittman served as the FBI’s top investigator and coordinator in cases involving art theft and art fraud.

During his 20 years with the FBI, Wittman recovered more than $300 million worth of stolen art and cultural property, including the recovery of North Carolina’s original copy of the Bill of Rights, which had been stolen by a Union soldier in 1865. In 2005, he was instrumental in the creation of the FBI’s rapid deployment Art Crime Team (ACT). After his years with the FBI, he continued to use his expertise as an art security consultant for the private sector. In 2010 Wittman published his memoir Priceless, which recounts his career and activities while working for the FBI as an undercover agent.

DORIT STRAUS

Dorit Straus was the Vice President and Worldwide Specialty Fine Art manager for Chubb & Son, a division of the Federal Insurance Company. Prior to joining Chubb in 1982, Dorit studied archaeology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. She has lectured on Biblical Archaeology and worked at several museums including The Jewish Museum, The Peabody Museum of Ethnography at Harvard University and the Museum of Contemporary Craft in New York.

Dorit has underwriting experience in Property, Casualty, and Entertainment as well as Fine Art. She was a key member of OBJECT ID of the Getty Institute, which established universal criteria for describing works of art. She speaks on art and insurance at international venues including seminars on risk management for museums and cultural institutions at Shanghai University.

In 2014 Dorit joined Art Recovery Group as the company’s U.S. Insurance Consultant.

BONNIE MAGNESS-GARDINER

Dr. Bonnie Magness-Gardiner is Program Manager of the Art Theft Program at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC. She manages the National Stolen Art File and provides support for the Art Crime Team, — twelve special agents investigating cultural property cases in the U.S. and abroad.

Dr. Magness-Gardiner received a PhD in Near Eastern Archaeology from the University of Arizona. After teaching archaeology for five years, she entered government service as manager for the Archaeology Program at the National Endowment for the Humanities. Later she became a program manager for the American Memory Project at the Library of Congress. For eight years she was the Senior Cultural Property Analyst for the Department of State, implementing the 1970 UNESCO Convention against illicit traffic in cultural property. She served as the program manager for cultural heritage restoration projects in Iraq. Since June 2005, she has been with the FBI.