FBI Recovers Bok's Stolen Paintings; Three Indicted in Last Year's Theft

Six paintings valued at more than $380,000 stolen last summer from President Bok's home have been recovered, and three persons have been indicted on charges of transporting and selling the paintings.

Shirley D. Machinist, a Brookline art dealer, Joseph L. Maggio, also of Brookline, and Edward Dipietro of Malden were named in two-count federal indictments handed down by a federal grand jury in Boston on Wednesday, spokesman for the Boston office of the FBI said last night.

Richard Bates, special agent in charge of the Boston office of the FBI, said in a statement that Dipietro was arrested yesterday and held on $7500 bond. Maggio surrendered yesterday, and Machinist plans to surrender today, Bates added.

Sissela Bok, Bok's wife, said last night the FBI had not told her of the recovery but said she thought the news was "wonderful." She declined further comment.

Bok was in Nashville, Tenn., attending the inauguration of J. Walter Leonard, his former special assistant for affirmative action, as president of Fisk University.

For Sale

The FBI spokesman said last night the indictment alleges that Machinist and Dipietro sold four of the paintings on October 19, 1976 at Machinist's home.

The charges state the remaining two paintings were taken to Rhode Island, the spokesman said.

The paintings were stolen the night of July 7, 1976 from the ground floor of Bok's house at 33 Elmwood Drive in Cambridge while the Bok family slept upstairs.

Five of the six paintings were on loan from Harvard's Fogg Art Museum, including two works by the 19th century French impressionist Eugene Boudin and one by the 17th century Dutch painter Gerrit Berckheyde, valued at $100,000 each.

One of the paintings stolen by the alleged thieves, who apparently climbed an eight-foot fence behind Bok's house and forced open a rear window, was a 20th century French work owned by Bok, reportedly worth $10,000.

The other two Fogg paintings were valued at $20,000 and $50,000.

The Fogg paintings were loaned to Bok soon after he became President in the summer of 1971. They were not insured by an outside company, but were "self-insured," Seymour Slive, director of the Fogg, said at the time of the theft.

Self-insurance can either mean the University must assume the loss of the paintings, or that a special fund covers the loss.

Slive, who could not be reached for comment last night, has declined to say which type of self-insurance applied to the stolen paintings