Two men have been sentenced in connection with the 2019 theft of America, Maurizio Cattelan’s 18-carat gold toilet sculpture, during a pre-dawn raid at England’s historic Blenheim Palace. The piece, valued at around $6 million, has never been recovered.
According to a statement from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), James Sheen received a four-year prison sentence for orchestrating the theft, while Michael Jones, who scouted the location in advance, was sentenced to 27 months. Sheen had previously pleaded guilty to burglary; Jones was convicted by a jury at Oxford Crown Court of burglary, and a third man, Frederick Doe, was found guilty of conspiracy to convert or transfer criminal property.
The toilet, titled America (2016), weighs 227 pounds and was made entirely of solid gold. It was on display for just two days at Blenheim Palace—birthplace of Winston Churchill—as part of an exhibition of Cattelan’s work when it was stolen in a highly coordinated, five-minute operation on September 14, 2019, at approximately 5 a.m.
CCTV footage captured the thieves using stolen vehicles to crash through locked gates. They then broke into the palace using sledgehammers and crowbars, dismantled the toilet, and fled with it in the back of a getaway car.
“Given the level of planning that enabled the raid to be carried out within five minutes, it was unusual that the offenders left such a trail of evidence in their wake,” said Shan Saunders, a prosecutor with the CPS. “From phone messages to DNA traces found in a stolen car and on the sledgehammer used in the burglary, this wealth of evidence ultimately enabled us to secure their convictions.”
Investigators reviewed nearly 30,000 pages of evidence, including text messages, images, and hours of voice recordings obtained from Sheen’s phone. The material revealed that Sheen and Doe communicated in coded language about melting down the toilet and selling the gold for £26,500 ($34,500) per kilogram.
Jones was found to have visited Blenheim Palace twice—once before the exhibit opened, and again after the toilet was installed—to take reconnaissance photos.
Sheen had previously received a suspended 21-month sentence and was ordered to perform 240 hours of community service for unrelated offenses. His latest sentence reflects the seriousness and scale of the theft, which authorities believe was connected to a broader criminal and money laundering network.
“Three of the individuals involved in this crime have now been sentenced, and we believe this prosecution has played a part in disrupting a wider crime and money laundering network,” Saunders added.
The toilet remains missing. Though insured, authorities have long feared it was melted down and sold as scrap shortly after the theft.
