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NEW YORK - Hailed as one of the greatest cat burglars, Alan Golder seemed the epitome of the "gentleman thief".
He robbed the rich and famous, choosing to break into their mansions while they sat down to dinner because he knew no one would be out wearing their best jewels at a ball or party.
The tactic earned him the nickname "the Dinnertime Bandit". He stole millions of dollars' worth of jewels in the 1970s, including break-ins at homes owned by the Kennedy family and talk show host Johnny Carson.
But it was a spree that ended in 1980 with a 15-year jail sentence after one robbery went wrong. Now Golder is back behind bars and charged with a number of fresh heists.
Police believe that on his release in 1996 Golder went straight back to what he did best: stealing jewels from the wealthy.
Next month Golder will appear in court charged with more than 40 burglaries in Connecticut. He is suspected of others in New York and Pennsylvania that in total netted more than US$6 million ($7.8 million).
But that could be just the tip of the iceberg. When police first began to link Golder to the crime spree, he escaped from the country and spent a decade in foreign climes. Many experts believe he has probably been robbing his way across Europe.
"I believe he's been targeting homes all over. Spain, France, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom ... in many ways he is the best jewel thief that ever lived," said David Webb, who is researching a possible book on Golder and maintains the website dinnertimebandit.info chronicling his story.
When he left the country in 1997 police found a document at his New York flat. It was a 13-page proposal entitled Precious Metal: Confessions of a Rock'n'Roll Jewel Thief.
He had sold the treatment to Paramount Pictures for US$25,000.
He grew up poor in New York but discovered his talent for stealing at a young age. By his late teens he had taken to burglary and fallen in with the local mob. He quickly developed his modus operandi of breaking into homes while wealthy owners sat down to eat their dinners.
As well as ensuring that the best jewels would be present in the house, that tactic also ensured no alarm would be on and people would be distracted as they ate their meals.
He free-climbed walls to enter a house through an upstairs window. He would wear a black Ninja-style suit with slits for eyeholes and gloves to cover his fingerprints. He rarely left a trace and most of his victims never knew they had been robbed until they had finished eating.
The robberies he is now accused of began only days after he left prison. Golder was arrested in Antwerp.
The Belgian authorities have refused to say how they caught him, but he was then extradited to the United States.
He has surprised observers by pleading not guilty to the new charges, but many believe this will mark the end of the Dinnertime Bandit's career.
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