A Wisconsin man pleaded guilty Friday to felony robbery in the theft of a rare 300-year-old violin from a concertmaster, according to court records obtained by Reuters.
Salah Jones admitted to stealing the Stradivarius violin, valued at $5 million, by using a stun gun to shock concert musician Frank Almond during the Jan. 27 robbery after a Milwaukee concert. Jones stashed the violin in a Milwaukee homeowner's attic, where it was found undamaged nine days later. Jones faces up to 15 years in prison.
The 42-year-old robber apparently has a taste for fine art. He once told a witness that it "was his dream theft" to steal a Stradivarius violin because of its value. He also has a previous conviction for stealing a $25,000 statue, according to the Associated Press.
Another man is currently serving a 3-and-a-half year sentence for supplying Jones with the stun gun. Universal Knowledge Allah, 37, pleaded guilty in May to being a party in the crime and will be supervised for another 3-and-a-half years after his release. He was not present during the robbery.
It remains unclear what Jones was going to do with the violin. Experts say selling it would have been difficult because such rare valuables are heavily monitored.
"There's virtually no place that a violin like this can be taken and fenced," David Bonsey, a New York-based violin maker and appraiser, told the AP. "You can't take it to a pawn shop."
The private owner of the Stradivarius loaned it to Almond, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concertmaster, to play indefinitely. There are an estimated 600 instruments, including violins and cellos, left in the world made by famed Italian instrument maker Antonio Stradivari.
The instruments are said to last decades if played repeatedly. They are "part of a body of work from someone whose work just cannot be imitated," Bonsey told the AP. "A lot of people do sculptures, but there's only one Michelangelo and there'll never be another one.
"There's never going to be another Stradivarius," he said.
