After disavowing ownership, Newton claims paintings seized in drug sting are his

Monday, Nov. 17, 1997 | 12:47 p.m.

The former Las Vegas headliner, who became famous with his 1963 hit "Danke Schoen" and was once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's highest-paid entertainer, initially declared in U.S. Bankruptcy Court that he bought the paintings for a friend who reimbursed him.

Now, he contends they were stolen from a storage facility at his Las Vegas estate years ago, the Drug Enforcement Administration said.

Newton didn't return telephone calls placed to his Branson, Mo., theater, where he was performing today at the Yellow Ribbon Celebrity Theatre. His manager, Howard Cotner, wasn't available, a receptionist said from his Springfield, Mo., office.

Unhappy with the apparent flip-flop, the DEA wants Newton to prove the paintings are his.

"Normally, people whose property we seize abandon it, but they don't come back and reclaim it. This is unusual," DEA Special Agent Sharon Carter said.

A Newton attorney contacted federal authorities after last month's conviction of Jose B. Uribe, a former Coachella city manager who tried to swap the world-famous paintings for two suitcases stuffed with 25 kilograms of cocaine apiece on May 24, 1995, Carter said.

The drug suppliers turned out to be undercover DEA agents. They confiscated the artwork -- which included 10 Renoirs, two Dalis and a Matisse -- and arrested Uribe, 49, and Raymond Torres of Las Vegas. Torres pleaded guilty last year but is now attempting to retract that plea.

After Uribe's trial, the DEA was going to turn the paintings over to the U.S. marshal's service, which would have auctioned the art because no one had claimed them. Then Newton's attorney called, saying the entertainer wanted his art back.

In a statement to DEA agents shortly after his arrest, Torres said he got 20 paintings from an associate who had stolen them from Newton's Las Vegas estate. Torres told the DEA he promised the unnamed thief 3 kilograms of cocaine in exchange for the paintings and also sought help from a friend, Uribe, in figuring out how to sell the artwork.

In December 1994, Newton said in bankruptcy court that his Sotheby's account was used to pay $112,000 for "Baie de Pont Aven" and five of the 10 Renoirs seized by federal agents. Those paintings, however, were not listed in an inventory of Newton's assets filed in bankruptcy court.

He had been called to testify about the paintings and other expenses after creditors complained he was maintaining a lavish lifestyle even though he was more than $20 million in debt.

Newton contended that although five of the seized Renoirs were bought at Sotheby's auctions, charged to his account and shipped to his Las Vegas home, the artwork was actually purchased for a man named Keith Wood, a friend from Texas who reimbursed him.

Still, Newton and his wife, Kathleen, filed a report with Las Vegas authorities on Nov. 8, 1995 -- six months after Uribe and Torres were arrested -- that some paintings were stolen from their home.