A New Plot Twist for Stolen Oscars

The brother of the man hailed as a hero for finding stolen Oscar statuettes just before this year’s Academy Awards was arrested Friday in connection with their disappearance.

John Harris, 54, was jailed after investigators learned the statuettes had been in his residence before they were recovered, Officer Jason Lee said.

Harris’ brother, Willie Fulgear, a 61-year-old junk salvage man, called police last March and reported that he had come across 52 of the 55 gold-plated statuettes beside a dumpster near his Koreatown home. He received a $50,000 reward and tickets to the Academy Awards ceremony, where Billy Crystal joked that the salvage man’s real dream was to someday direct.

Fulgear has not been named as a suspect.

“It’s an ongoing investigation,� Lee said. “We’re not calling him a suspect at this time, but the investigation has not been concluded.�

Fulgear, who lives near his brother, could not be reached for comment.

Two months after the Academy Awards, Fulgear reported to police that $40,000 of his reward money had been stolen from a safe in his apartment while he was out of town.

Fulgear said he placed the money in a 500-pound safe while he went house hunting in Mississippi. When he returned, he said, he found his home ransacked and the money gone. Fulgear had said he kept the money in his home so his son would have access to it if anything ever happened to him.

At the time, it was a weird twist to a story worthy of Hollywood.

The statuettes, which are 13 1/2 inches tall and weigh 8 1/2 pounds, were made in Chicago. They cost about $18,000 to manufacture but would have sold for much more on the black market. They were shipped by Roadway Express to a warehouse in Bell, where they disappeared from a loading dock only days before the ceremony.

Soon after the statuettes were recovered, police arrested two trucking company workers on suspicion of grand theft. Lawrence Ledent, 38, a former Roadway truck driver, pleaded no contest in June to grand theft. He is scheduled to begin serving a six-month jail term in December.

Anthony Hart, a Roadway dock worker at the warehouse, was charged with one count of grand theft. Hart, 38, pleaded not guilty and was released on his own recognizance pending trial.

With Ledent and Hart arrested, authorities lavished attention on Fulgear. News conferences were held and Fulgear was given reward money during a presentation outside police headquarters last spring.

He wore a top hat and tails to the Oscars.

“I’m a poor man and I stumbled across, I guess, gold. And I gave it back,� Fulgear told reporters last spring. “If anybody says ‘honesty don’t pay,’ send them to me.�

His brother’s bail was set at $20,000 for two felony charges of receiving property and accessory to grand theft, Lee said.