LeMay – America’s Car Museum License Plate Approved for Production in Washington
TACOMA, Wash. — LeMay – America’s Car Museum (ACM) has received approval to produce a specialty license plate in Washington state, with sales now open through the Washington State Department of Licensing.
The custom plate, one of the few in the nation dedicated to a car museum, was approved following the state’s compliance process. Proceeds from each purchase will directly support ACM, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, funding vehicle preservation, exhibitions and educational programming.
Museum officials said the design reflects the institution’s identity and mission to preserve and interpret America’s automotive history while promoting car culture and education.
ACM, located in Tacoma, houses more than 250 vehicles and is considered one of the largest automobile museums in the world. The museum operates as an entity of America’s Automotive Trust.
The specialty plate is available for order through the state Department of Licensing website.
Lackawanna County Man Gets 10 Years for Theft of Major Artwork, Sports Memorabilia
SCRANTON, Pa., Feb. 11, 2026 — A Lackawanna County man was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in federal prison for leading a multistate conspiracy that targeted museums and cultural institutions across the country, stealing major artwork, sports memorabilia and historical artifacts worth millions of dollars.
Nicholas Dombek, 55, of Thornhurst Township, was sentenced to 120 months’ imprisonment, followed by supervised release, and ordered to pay $2.75 million in restitution by Senior U.S. District Judge Malachy E. Mannion, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced.
A federal jury convicted Dombek earlier this year on eight counts, including conspiracy, theft of major artwork, concealment and disposal of major artwork, and interstate transportation of stolen property.
Prosecutors said Dombek and seven co-conspirators stole high-value items from museums and halls of fame nationwide, including works by Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock from the Everhart Museum in 2005, and sports memorabilia linked to figures such as Yogi Berra, Roger Maris and Ben Hogan.
Authorities said the group transported stolen goods to northeastern Pennsylvania, where many items were melted into metal discs or bars and sold in the New York City area for a fraction of their market value. Dombek also burned a painting, “Upper Hudson” by Jasper Crospey, valued at about $125,000, to prevent its recovery, prosecutors said.
Nicholas Dombek, 55, of Thornhurst Twp. , convicted in February 2025 of being a member of an art and memorabilia theft ring that targeted 20 museums and other venues over two decades in six states.
After a 2019 search of his home, Dombek threatened co-conspirators who might cooperate with law enforcement. Indicted in 2023, he fled as FBI agents attempted to arrest him and remained a fugitive for nearly six months before surrendering on Jan. 1, 2024.
Three co-defendants were convicted at trial. Damien Boland was sentenced to 108 months in prison, and Joseph Atsus received 48 months. Four others previously pleaded guilty and received sentences ranging from probation to eight years.
Idaho man gets nine months for theft of historic artifacts from Montana museum
An Idaho man with a decades-long history of theft has been sentenced to nine months in prison for stealing historic weapons from the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Great Falls, Montana, in 2024, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Roger Edward Hawkes, 71, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, was sentenced after pleading guilty to one count of removing archaeological resources, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Montana. U.S. Magistrate Judge John T. Johnston imposed the sentence.
Prosecutors said Hawkes entered the interpretive center on Sept. 14, 2024, approached a table-top display titled “Weapons of the Expedition Interpretation,” and stole two artifacts: an antique English single-shot black-powder Mortimer pistol and a knife in a leather, beaded sheath, both dating to the late 1700s or early 1800s. Surveillance video appeared to show him concealing the items up his sleeve as he left the building.
The U.S. Forest Service publicized the theft on social media and received tips that Hawkes was selling knives at the Little Red Truck Cottage Market in Great Falls. A witness reported seeing him there on Sept. 15 and 16, selling western items including knives and antique pistols, and local law enforcement confirmed he had been at the museum when the theft occurred.
Investigators later recovered the stolen pistol from Cisco’s Gallery on Oct. 24, 2024. After Hawkes was arrested in an unrelated case, an FBI task force officer interviewed him about the theft. He first denied involvement, then told agents the stolen knife—which he claimed he believed was a replica—was in his storage unit and consented to a search that led to its recovery.
In a second interview in May 2025, Hawkes again denied stealing the artifacts and complained that pleading guilty in a prior case had resulted in a prison term rather than probation. Authorities noted his theft record spans more than 40 years in California, Nevada and Idaho.
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Recidivist art fraud suspect charged in scheme involving Gustave Courbet painting
A Connecticut man previously convicted of art fraud has been indicted in New York for allegedly stealing the proceeds from the sale of a 19th-century Gustave Courbet painting valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars, federal prosecutors said Friday.
Thomas Doyle, 68, also known as “AJ” or “Austin Doyle,” was charged with one count of wire fraud in connection with what authorities described as a years-long scheme to defraud an art dealer who owned Courbet’s “Mother and Child on a Hammock.” Doyle, who was convicted in a separate art-related fraud case in 2011, was arrested Thursday in Norwalk, Connecticut, and presented in federal court in Manhattan. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian.
Prosecutors allege that between December 2022 and March 2025, Doyle cultivated a relationship with the dealer through email and WhatsApp, falsely claiming he managed the art holdings of a multibillion-dollar family trust. In 2024, the dealer allowed Doyle to take custody of the Courbet painting to show to a supposed buyer and authorized him to sell it for $550,000. Doyle later told the dealer the painting had sold for that price, according to the indictment.
Instead, authorities say, an associate acting on Doyle’s behalf consigned the work to a Manhattan gallery using falsified provenance that claimed Doyle had purchased it from the dealer in 2019. The gallery sold the painting on Oct. 1, 2024, for $125,000 and wired $115,000 in proceeds to the associate, who then paid Doyle $109,250. Prosecutors say Doyle never paid the owner any portion of the sale and had spent all of the money by February 2025 on personal expenses and debts while falsely insisting the purported buyer had not yet paid.
In a March 4, 2025, email, Doyle admitted to the dealer that he had “betrayed” and “lied” about the painting, according to prosecutors. The wire fraud charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, though any eventual sentence will be determined by the judge.
Louvre jewel heist leaves eight royal treasures missing
Thieves made off with a cache of priceless royal jewelry from the Louvre Museum in Paris on Sunday morning, in a brazen break-in that has drawn in international police.
Shortly before 9:30 a.m. on 19 October 2025, four suspects used a vehicle-mounted mechanical ladder to access the museum’s Galerie d’Apollon, cut through display cases and steal nine pieces of jewelry adorned with thousands of diamonds and other precious stones dating back to 19th-century French royalty, authorities said.
A crown once belonging to Empress Eugénie of France was found at the scene, apparently dropped by the intruders, but eight other items remain missing.
The stolen pieces have been entered into an international stolen art database that contains more than 57,000 items and is used by police worldwide to track missing cultural property. A special poster alert has also been circulated to law enforcement agencies in all member countries to help identify and recover the jewels.
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