The man who pulled off a brazen art theft in Canada will spend the next two years behind bars. A judge in Ottawa sentenced Jeffrey Wood on Monday, reports the CBC. At some point during the pandemic, Woods stole a renowned photograph of Winston Churchill from Ottawa's Chateau Laurier hotel and replaced it with a forgery. It took several months before a hotel worker noticed that "The Roaring Lion" image—taken by renowned photographer Yousuf Karsh—had been switched out.
Justice Robert Wadden called the portrait a piece of "cultural and historical" significance during the sentencing, and the BBC backs that up with a description of the photo as "one of the 20th century's most iconic images." It depicts a 67-year-old Churchill, then prime minister of the UK, after he delivered a speech to the Canadian parliament in 1941 amid World War II.
Wood pleaded guilty in March to charges including theft over $5,000, forgery, and trafficking stolen property. His lawyer described the sentence as "unnecessarily harsh," arguing that Wood was a first-time offender who owned up to the theft, and promised to appeal. Once it was finally discovered, the theft sparked an international investigation, one that ultimately led to Genoa, Italy, where the photograph was recovered from an unsuspecting buyer. (Read details of the investigation here.) (This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)
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