By LAURA ITALIANO
June 6, 2008
Chairman Mao is going home.
A rare Andy Warhol silk-screen print of the Communist leader will be returned soon to its rightful owner, thanks to a Manhattan jury, which yesterday convicted a NoHo frame-shop employee of its theft.
For a week, the chairman had presided on an easel over the grand-larceny trial of Kelly Bucala, 33, of Brooklyn. It took a jury less than four hours to find her guilty.
"I can't wait to get the piece back," a jubilant Steve Loeb said of the print. "I miss it."
That's despite the fact that the $60,000 work was rolled, crushed, bent and punctured as it was squeezed through a security gate and sneaked back into the frame shop.
