Goya Arrest Update: The Girlfriend Talks

Where were the defense lawyers when Steven Lee Olson and his girlfriend really needed them? Susan Tranquada, the love interest of the suspect arrested Tuesday night in the Goya theft, blabbed yesterday to The Record of Bergen County, NJ, home to both CultureGrrl and the alleged thief. He is said to have spirited the painting away after it was tucked in for the night last November---locked in a truck while en route to the Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Apparently, Tranquada, a waitress, didn't think "Children with a Cart" was worthy of her abode. Peter Sampson and Jason Tsai report:

Olson told her he'd been rooting around their basement when he discovered the painting. He proposed hanging it in their apartment, but she refused, citing the subjects' faces. "I wouldn't put this on my wall," she said.

She was the one who came across a newspaper article that identified the painting and its owner:

"He was in shock. We didn't care about the reward. We just wanted the thing gone and off our hands."

They took the painting to Olson's longtime lawyer, Warren Sutnick of Hackensack, who insisted on calling the FBI, Tranquada said. Agents came over and interviewed the couple separately at the lawyer's office, she recalled.

They thought they were off the hook until Tuesday night when, as Tranquada told the Record, "a quartet of FBI agents took him [Olson] away."