A caregiver working in a Jupiter Farms home is accused of stealing a Salvador Dali etching valued at $20,000 and pawning it for $100, according to a probable cause affidavit.
> More Popular and trending stories
Kyla Donine St. Mary, 23, is facing a charge of larceny between $20,000 and $100,000. She was booked into the Palm Beach County Jail on Tuesday night and remains there in lieu of $5,000 bail.
The affidavit states that St. Mary was hired on Oct. 23 to work as a caregiver and moved into the home of John R. Viola after the 54-year-old man was left wheelchair-bound and unable to walk after he was injured on Oct. 12.
On Tuesday, Viola went searching for a Lladro angel figurine he wanted appraised for insurance purposes and found it missing. Viola told Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies the figurine, which he purchased in Gibraltar, has a value of $7,200.
Viola confronted St. Mary about the missing figurine, but she denied taking it, according to the affidavit.
Viola then noticed that his Dali artwork was also gone. When Viola asked St. Mary about the etching, the woman said she took it to frame shop for repairs. St. Mary then changed her story, telling Viola that she took it to a pawn shop where a friend of her dad’s worked.
Told by Viola to return the artwork, St. Mary told him it would cost $110 to get back.
St. Mary told deputies that on Oct. 31 or Nov. 1, she saw the Dali etching hanging crooked from the wall and tried to adjust the frame. The etching accidentally fell to the floor, St. Mary said, cracking the glass on the frame. St. Mary said she took the etching to Fast Eddie’s pawn shop in Riviera Beach to have it repaired and was supposed to pick it up on Nov. 8. St. Mary told deputies she hoped to replace the etching before Viola noticed its absence.
A sheriff’s office detective did a search for the Dali artwork on a pawn database system and found it had been pawned on Oct. 31 by a 22-year-old man. Transaction details show the man was given $100 for the etching, which depicts the fictional character Don Quixote.
St. Mary said she used the man to pawn the etching because she did not have a Florida driver’s license.
