A housekeeper pleaded guilty yesterday to state court charges in the theft of a Benjamin Franklin bust taken from a Main Line home.
Mobile, Ala., resident Andrea Lawton, 47, already faced up to 20 years in federal prison for pleading guilty in December to interstate transportation of stolen property for allegedly fleeing with the bust to Alabama in August.
Monday's plea in Montgomery County Common Pleas court dealt with the theft of the bust itself from a home in Lower Merion Township.
Lawton's defense attorney Michael John says he's hoping any prison term Lawton receives for the state court charges will run concurrently to her pending federal sentence because “this is all one event.”
Police said Lawton told investigators that she stole the bust from the home in Bryn Mawr because she was told it was valuable and wanted to get her boss fired.
She was arrested in Elkton, Md. where she planned to sell the bust for $500,000, according to court records.
Her federal court defense attorney Martin Isenberg said his client made a mistake.
Isenberg says the bust was damaged, but there is debate over how much it is worth. The owner has claimed the bust is worth about $3 million.
