Suspects charged in French Laundry wine theft spree

Two men are accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in high-end wine from the French Laundry in Napa County and a South Bay steakhouse.|

More than a year after a collection of the world’s most sought-after wines disappeared from the cellar of exclusive Yountville restaurant The French Laundry, federal prosecutors indicted two California men in the theft as well as two other Bay Area wine heists.

Alfred Georgis, 53, of Mountain View and Davis Kiryakoz, 44, of Modesto are accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in high-end wine during the Christmas 2014 burglary at chef Thomas Keller’s renowned Napa County restaurant.

The heist involved prized bottles of wine often compared to works of art - including Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, or DRC, worth up to $10,000 a bottle. Napa County sheriff’s officials at the time noted the thefts were remarkably timed when the restaurant was closed for renovation and its alarm atypically turned off.

Napa County Sheriff’s Lt. Keith Behlmer said Friday that the burglaries were the largest high-dollar wine heists the department has investigated.

The indictment released Thursday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco says the two suspects, and other people unidentified by prosecutors, burglarized the French Laundry cellar. The theft involved approximately 100 bottles of wine. Earlier law enforcement reports pegged the value at roughly $300,000.

Where the bottles went from Napa County - most were sold to a buyer in North Carolina - left a trail that FBI investigators traced back to California, and to Georgis, Kiryakoz and an unnamed, un-indicted co-conspirator, according to federal prosecutors.

The FBI investigators ultimately also linked Georgis and Kiryakoz to two earlier burglaries that, in at least one of the cases, involved lesser-value wine from a wine merchant in San Francisco and a Cupertino restaurant.

The men sold wines stolen in the three burglaries to a buyer in North Carolina, according to the indictment, which does not name the purchaser. Georgis and Kiryakoz received cashier’s checks and wire transfers from a company called Wine Liquidators, according to the documents.

A Raleigh-based company by the same name appraises and buys personal fine wine collections, according to its website. Calls and emails to the company weren’t returned Friday.

But the money agreed upon for the sale of the French Laundry bottles - between $120,000 and $150,000 according to the indictment - apparently dried up once the buyer realized the wine was stolen. About 66 bottles had already been shipped to North Carolina, and Georgis and Kiryakoz were supposed to receive the money in installments of less than $10,000. They only received a total of $45,700 in multiple payments.

Behlmer, the Napa County sheriff’s lieutenant, said that several weeks after the French Laundry burglary, his office received a call from a North Carolina attorney who said his client had unwittingly bought the stolen wine.

Local detectives flew to North Carolina on Jan. 19, 2015 and shipped the wine back to California. They confirmed the wine had been taken from the French Laundry through serial numbers. They then asked the FBI to get involved to help them identify the client, which the attorney wouldn’t divulge.

“It was a local case, we didn’t know it would involve other burglaries from other wine establishments when we turned it over to the feds,” Behlmer said. “The feds were better prepared to do the work of finding out who the attorney’s clients were.”

Georgis and Kiryakoz face up to 10 years in prison and fines of $250,000 if convicted of crimes including conspiracy to transport stolen goods and transportation of stolen goods, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Both men were arrested Wednesday and made their first appearances Thursday in federal courts in Fresno and San Jose. Kiryakoz was released and Georgis was detained pending a bail hearing Wednesday.

They are accused of violation of interstate commerce laws and face one count of conspiracy to transport stolen goods and two counts of transportation of stolen goods.

The federal indictment said that the men spoke with the North Carolina buyer several times by phone before, during and after the March 27, 2013 burglary at wine merchant Fine Wines International in San Francisco.

An “unidentified co-conspirator” transported more than 50 bottles of wine taken during the theft to the North Carolina buyer. The federal case doesn’t specify how much money the men received from blank money orders signed by the buyer.

But the men each received $5,750 from the buyer after the Nov. 8, 2014 theft of about 29 bottles of wine from the Silicon Valley restaurant Alexander’s Steakhouse in Cupertino. About 17 bottles were sent to North Carolina, according to the indictment.

The federal indictment doesn’t link the men with the January 2014 break-in another Yountville restaurant, Redd on Washington Street. About 24 bottles of high-value wine, including some from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, were taken. The alarm was also turned off at the time of that burglary due to renovation work, similar to the French Laundry case.

Staff Writer Paul Payne contributed to this report. You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.

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