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Portland woman get 14 months for theft of artwork

Items worth $300K stolen from vancouver woman with dementia

By Paris Achen
Published: October 9, 2014, 5:00pm

A Portland woman was sentenced Thursday to 14 months in prison for her role in stealing Native American artwork worth more than $300,000 from the home where she worked as an in-home care provider.

Toakase F. Tovo, 20, and her boyfriend, John L. Kalamafoni, 23, stole more than 100 pieces of artwork in 2011 and 2012 from 91-year-old Margaret Sotta, a Vancouver woman who has dementia, according to a court affidavit by Vancouver police Detective Jane Easter. They sold the items to collectors and antiques dealers around the greater Portland area, Easter said.

In an agreement with prosecutors, Tovo pleaded guilty in Clark County Superior Court to charges of first-degree theft, first-degree trafficking in stolen property and second-degree possession of stolen property. In exchange, Deputy Prosecutor Michelle Nisle dismissed a second count of second-degree possession of stolen property and recommended a sentence of 366 days.

Tovo apologized Thursday for her actions, turning briefly to look at Sotta’s son and daughter, who were sitting in the public gallery.

However, Judge Robert Lewis chose not to agree to the plea deal. Lewis said Tovo had preyed on victims who already were victims of their circumstances. He said she also hadn’t learned from the consequences of another theft she committed as a juvenile.

“You are simply are not a low-end (of the sentencing range) person for what you have done,” Lewis said. “You are going to serve the maximum the court can give you, which is 14 months.”

Kalamafoni also is considering a plea offer, his attorney, Gerry Wear, said. Wear scheduled an Oct. 30 hearing for that purpose. Kalamafoni’s trial is scheduled for Nov. 24.

Teresa Sotta said her father, Robert Sotta, was an avid collector of Native American artwork, including pottery, blankets, baskets and statues. As the couple aged, he hired Lavinia’s Home Care to care for himself and his wife. Owner Lavinia Tovo and members of her family, including her daughter, Toakase, provided care to the Sottas, according to the court affidavit.

Robert Sotta died in 2011 and left his art collection to his wife.

In October 2012, Margaret Sotta had to be taken to a hospital for undisclosed medical problems. Her children decided that she needed higher-skilled in-home care providers and terminated services with Lavinia’s Home Care, the affidavit says.

After the termination, Teresa Sotta noticed that many pieces of the Native American artwork were missing from her mother’s house.

The Sotta children conducted an inventory and found that at least 108 pieces of artwork were gone. The artwork was valued at about $320,000.

“Dad often shared information about his collection … with anyone who would listen,” Robert Sotta’s son, Thomas Sotta, wrote in a prepared statement to the court. “He was very proud of his collection and would explain why certain pieces were more valuable than others. These culprits used that information and took advantage of Mom’s dementia to pilfer the most valuable pieces over a few months’ time.”

Teresa Sotta reported the theft to Vancouver police. However, she said the police initially would not investigate. The Sotta children, who suspected someone from Lavinia Tovo’s family was to blame, then hired their own private investigators to try to find out who stole the artwork.

Investigators found some of the stolen items on an art gallery website, according to the court affidavit. They found a Portland antiques dealer and two Native American art collectors who said they purchased pieces of artwork from people matching the descriptions of Toakase Tovo and her boyfriend, Kalamafoni.

Easter said in the affidavit that she also recovered a stolen statue, which Kalamafoni had sold to downtown Vancouver’s Accent on Antiques and Collectibles, 1911 Main St.

A private investigator and a Portland Police Bureau detective visited the defendants’ home in Portland in February 2013 and questioned them about the accusations, according to the affidavit.

During the interview, the couple admitted that they had been stealing artwork from Margaret Sotta’s home since October 2011, the affidavit says.

“This has been a miserable experience for our family,” Theresa Sotta said Thursday. “What an incredible breach of our trust.”

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