Chap­ter 33 of The Art Thief pro­vides a vivid depic­tion of the unfold­ing court­room dra­ma sur­round­ing the tri­al of Stéphane Bre­itwieser, the infa­mous art thief. The pro­ceed­ings are cen­tered on the real­i­ty that, while Breitwieser’s guilt is unde­ni­ably established—due to his confession—the defense team is deter­mined to argue for his release after he has already served 444 days in jail. His defense attor­ney asserts that the thefts com­mit­ted by Bre­itwieser were not mali­cious in intent but instead stemmed from his deep pas­sion for art. Accord­ing to the lawyer, Bre­itwieser was not moti­vat­ed by greed or a desire to prof­it from the stolen items but instead sought to tem­porar­i­ly pro­tect and pre­serve them. This nar­ra­tive paints Bre­itwieser as some­one whose obses­sion with art spi­raled out of con­trol, turn­ing him into an unin­ten­tion­al crim­i­nal. As part of the defense, Chris­t­ian Meich­ler and oth­ers tes­ti­fy, por­tray­ing Bre­itwieser as a pas­sion­ate col­lec­tor whose enthu­si­asm for art led to unfor­tu­nate mis­steps, bol­ster­ing the argu­ment that his actions were dri­ven by admi­ra­tion rather than avarice.

Bre­itwieser him­self is giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to speak dur­ing the tri­al, where he attempts to defend his actions by assert­ing that he intend­ed to return the stolen pieces. He frames his thefts as tem­po­rary guardian­ships of the art­work, fur­ther empha­siz­ing his emo­tion­al attach­ment to these cul­tur­al trea­sures. Breitwieser’s heart­felt tears and emo­tion­al dec­la­ra­tions dur­ing his tes­ti­mo­ny, in which he express­es regret, seem to sway some mem­bers of the court­room. How­ev­er, they are met with skep­ti­cism by the pros­e­cu­tor, who argues that these emo­tion­al out­bursts should not obscure the cal­cu­lat­ed and sys­tem­at­ic nature of Breitwieser’s actions. The pros­e­cu­tor, in a point­ed attack, out­lines the long his­to­ry of thefts car­ried out by Bre­itwieser, span­ning a peri­od of sev­en years, dur­ing which he method­i­cal­ly stole art on a reg­u­lar basis. Draw­ing com­par­isons to oth­er noto­ri­ous art thieves like Kemp­ton Bun­ton and Vin­cen­zo Perug­gia, the pros­e­cu­tor under­scores how Breitwieser’s thefts were not the result of fleet­ing impuls­es but rather a sus­tained, delib­er­ate effort to acquire valu­able works of art. These par­al­lels aim to show that, despite the emo­tion­al nature of Breitwieser’s tes­ti­mo­ny, his crim­i­nal behav­ior pos­es a sig­nif­i­cant threat to both the art world and soci­ety at large.

The pros­e­cu­tor presents a com­pelling case, detail­ing the emo­tion­al and finan­cial toll that Breitwieser’s thefts have had on the art world. Wit­ness­es tes­ti­fy to the sig­nif­i­cance of the stolen pieces, such as a rare 1584 bugle and numer­ous invalu­able paint­ings, which were lost for­ev­er from muse­ums and pri­vate col­lec­tions. Morand, a muse­um cura­tor, speaks about the emo­tion­al trau­ma caused by the thefts, as these art­works were irre­place­able parts of cul­tur­al her­itage. This emo­tion­al tes­ti­mo­ny high­lights the severe con­se­quences of Breitwieser’s actions, which go beyond the mate­r­i­al loss to include the pro­found sense of cul­tur­al loss felt by those who worked with and cared for these pieces. Despite this, Bre­itwieser con­tin­ues to deflect respon­si­bil­i­ty, attribut­ing his actions to dis­crep­an­cies in the label­ing of the stolen art rather than accept­ing full account­abil­i­ty for his role in the crimes. To fur­ther illus­trate his lack of remorse, the pros­e­cu­tor presents a let­ter from Bre­itwieser in which he admits to still har­bor­ing a desire to com­mit fur­ther thefts. This let­ter, along with pro­fes­sion­al eval­u­a­tions of Breitwieser’s psy­cho­log­i­cal state, strong­ly sug­gests that he remains a high risk for reof­fend­ing. In his clos­ing argu­ments, the pros­e­cu­tor argues that Breitwieser’s release would put soci­ety at seri­ous risk, and that the weight of his crimes must be ful­ly account­ed for. As the jury pre­pares to delib­er­ate, the chap­ter leaves read­ers grap­pling with the com­plex­i­ty of the situation—considering the nuances of jus­tice, the con­se­quences of crim­i­nal behav­ior, and the emo­tion­al toll on both the vic­tims and the per­pe­tra­tor.