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Assisted living worker accused of stealing antiques

 

 

MILWAUKEE — When the Thiensville Police Department arrived at Donald Derosier's doorstep, they weren't expecting much.

Derosier, they had been told, had stolen some antiques from a former resident at the Willowbrook Place Assisted Living facility, where Derosier worked as a maintenance man.

The police found some of the man's antiques. They also found boxes of items stacked ceiling high that, among other things, included earrings, antique clocks, battleship figurines, rings, dolls, playing cards, a $9,000 bracelet and antique swords, including one valued at $17,000.

All of those items, among the 2,000 police estimate they'll have by the time they finish taking an inventory, are now laid out in the garage of the Thiensville Police Department, strewn across tables and waiting to be numbered with a circular, neon sticker.

"I'm in the 1,100 numbers," a worker said Thursday as she placed jewelry into small baggies and lined them up next to each other.

One of the items in front of her, waiting to be bagged, was a plain, gold ring. It looked like a wedding ring.

Derosier, 55, waived a preliminary hearing Thursday and pleaded not guilty.

He has told police that all of the items were either given to him or found in the trash or Goodwill basket.

Throwing your wedding ring in the trash seems unlikely, Thiensville police Lt. Chad Wucherer said as he surveyed the items.

It all started in early June, when a longtime collector friend of Tracy Atkinson, the man whose items the police initially set out to find, flew from Connecticut to take stock of and appraise the antique items Atkinson left behind when he died.

Some of Atkinson's most prized items were missing, he said — two miniature queen's carriages. The 17 Bahamas marching band figures. The valuable antique sword. Gone.

 

Atkinson hadn't sold any of the items when he moved from Connecticut to Wisconsin. His kids had tried to persuade him to — it would cost a fortune to ship — but Atkinson refused. He had spent a lifetime as an art museum director — including at the Milwaukee Art Center, now the Milwaukee Art Museum — and traveled the world collecting items.

Atkinson's friend took to eBay, where he found two miniature queen's carriages and 17 Bahamas marching band figures. There also were other items.

Karen Mihopulos, Atkinson's daughter, said she totaled up the price of all the items had sold on eBay. It amounted to $12,571, a fraction of the items' worth, which she said appraisers put at hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Police have managed to get back some of the items sold on eBay, in addition to the ones they found in Derosier's house.

Police are in the process of subpoenaing information from eBay. That will give them more details on all of the items Derosier allegedly sold and whom he sold them to.

The police are serving warrants to everyone they know bought some of the items, Wucherer said. But by this point, he said, they could be anywhere in the world.

Most of the items that aren't claimed will be auctioned, Wucherer said. Some of them will be donated.

Glen Choban, director of operations at Willowbrook Place, said the facility runs background checks on all prospective employees. Derosier's background check didn't turn up any criminal behavior, he said.

But according to Wucherer, Derosier had multiple criminal charges in other states when he was hired by Willowbrook Place..

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