She apparently assumed wrong. What should have been a happy ending—Ford has so far recovered nearly $8 million of the estimated $12 million to $15 million in gems that she lost—has turned into an ugly legal fight. Jones and Slep, both 38, and Jeff Meyer, 44, another Atlanta-area jeweler who played a key role in solving the case, contend that the heiress is welshing on her promise to pay. Chopin had told television's America's Most Wanted, "We have the money. We're going to spend the money. There are undoubtedly any number of people who know about this crime. The first one that comes to us will be very rich and very protected."
Very rich and very unprotected might best describe Ford at the time of the robbery. Apparently, on the evening of Jan. 10, 1997, while Ford was out of the country, a burglar removed a windowpane of the master bedroom at her $4.6 million home and made off with her jewels, which had been left in two large cases in the dressing area. The Palm Beach police later asserted that the heist was the single largest residential burglary in local history. (Like many owners of pricey jewelry collections, Ford carried no insurance on the gems; the premiums can be astronomical, and insurance companies impose burdensome rules on how the jewelry must be safeguarded.) The monetary loss was bad enough. But the jewels also had sentimental value, since most of them had been given to Kathleen by her late husband, Henry Ford II.
For Ford, 59, it was only the latest twist in a life already full of them. Raised in a working-class home in Detroit, she married very young and had two daughters. At 19, she was widowed when her husband, David DuRoss, a Chrysler-plant worker, was killed in a car crash. To make ends meet, Kathleen worked for a time as a model, but in 1970 she met Henry Ford II—known informally as Hank the Deuce—at a party. Ford was married at the time, but 10 years later, after a lengthy affair, he divorced his second wife, Cristina, and married Kathleen. When he died in 1987 of pneumonia at age 70, he left Kathleen $3 million in cash, plus the income—estimated at $15 million a year—from a $350 million trust, in addition to homes in London, Palm Beach and suburban Detroit. The generous bequest sparked a long and bitter court battle, which was settled in 1988, between the widow and Henry's three children from his first marriage.
The stakes aren't as high in the feud brewing over her reward offer—except to the three men who feel victimized. For months after the robbery, police had no clues other than the fact that it seemed to be the work of the same professional cat burglar who had been preying on Palm Beach for more than a year and a half and who was believed responsible for some $23 million in thefts. Then in December 1997 gem dealer Jeff Meyer was surfing the Internet when he came across pictures of the stolen Ford jewels on a Palm Beach Police Department Web site. One image jumped off the screen: a magnificent emerald necklace. The stones reminded him of a crudely set emerald he had recently seen in the shop of his friends Jones and Slep. "I called Randy right away and asked if he had sold that emerald and he said no," recalls Meyer. "I said we had to meet immediately."
When they did, they quickly spotted a similarity between the emerald at Global Gems and one of the stones in the grainy necklace picture that Meyer had downloaded. The emerald that Jones and Slep were holding had been given to them on consignment a month earlier by Barry Marshall, a Florida dealer whom Jones knew only slightly. Meyer promptly phoned Palm Beach police and Jones sent them pictures of the gem in question. Palm Beach police detective James Dean and FBI Special Agent Steven Burdelski confirmed it was from the Ford necklace and flew to Atlanta to set up a sting aimed at Marshall. On Dec. 4, Jones called Marshall and asked if he could supply more emeralds. Marshall said he could and arranged a meeting in Atlanta for the following week. Jones and Slep knew they were taking a chance by getting so deeply involved. "We didn't know all that much about Marshall," says Jones. "Was he Mob connected? Was he violent? We didn't know what to expect."
On Dec. 8 an FBI surveillance team tracked Marshall as he met in a Fort Lauderdale parking lot with a man later identified as Alvara Valdez, a career burglar with six prior convictions. Four days later, Marshall was picked up by the FBI as he was heading to Global Gems, and he immediately agreed to help apprehend Valdez. On Jan. 14 police armed with search warrants raided one of Valdez's homes, in Pompano Beach, Fla., where they found burglar tools and 121 pieces of jewelry, some of them Ford's. Last spring the pair pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen merchandise—crimes that did not include burglarizing Ford's home. Valdez drew a sentence of nearly six years and Marshall got 10, because the judge believed he was still hiding stolen loot.
Once the case was broken, Meyer, Jones and Slep waited to be congratulated for their efforts. "We were expecting a real happy phone call from Mrs. Ford," says Jones. "We actually thought she might fly us down to Palm Beach on a private jet to thank us personally." Instead, their numerous phone calls were ignored. A lawyer's letter finally elicited a terse reply from Chopin, who noted that no one had yet been convicted of actually taking the jewels from Ford's house and that he would discuss the reward "at some later, appropriate time." Though they are loath to take sides, police agree there is no question that the three were instrumental in solving the Ford case. "Without their information, we'd still be chasing leads," says the FBI's Burdelski.
Chopin begs to differ. He points out that Marshall and Valdez were prosecuted only on broader federal charges, and that no one has ever-been convicted of the Ford heist. (Police have no evidence, other than the stolen merchandise, to prove that Valdez was inside Ford's home.) So, he argues, it would be premature to pay the $1 million. He also contends that other criminals may have been involved in the theft, a possibility police do not entirely discount, though they believe any accomplices would have played minor roles. "I've never denied [the three jewelers] are entitled to the reward," says Chopin. "I've said you have to give us a chance to investigate." Insists Chopin: "Kate is not a chiseler. She's a caring and genuine person." (Ford declined to be interviewed for this story.)
Over a year later the three are still waiting for the check that would demonstrate Ford's caring nature. Both Marshall and Valdez are scheduled to face state charges for a string of thefts, but burglarizing the Ford home is not among them. In October, Melissa Burkholder, now representing the jewelers, hired a West Palm Beach law firm to file a civil suit against Ford, citing precedents to the effect that reward offers are tantamount to binding contracts. Burkholder and her clients have no idea whether the suit will succeed, but they are determined to make Ford and Chopin pay, if only in the court of public opinion. "They think these are just three poor guys from Georgia who don't stand a chance against Ford money," says Burkholder. "Well, they're not going to go away."
Bill Hewitt
Don Sider in Palm Beach, Gail Cameron Wescott in Atlanta and Margaret Nelson in Minneapolis
- Contributors:
- Don Sider,
- Gail Cameron Wescott,
- Margaret Nelson.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
