"An Ode to a Master Jewel Thief"

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Reform comes slow for a master jewel thief. You have to live the life of speedboats, close calls, and multimillion-dollar scores, get popped, serve eleven years, get out, and then, tempted to do just one more house, get sent right back. You have to lose your son, whom you tau- s of your trade, be a liar to everyone, your truth told only in police records. 11 Walter Shaw wears a gold chain with two charms—a yellow-gold pry bar and an onyx black cat, a diamond in its winking eye. ¶1 His black hair is slicked back and his button-down looks bought off the rack at a Jersey Big & Tall. 11- Once a man with Rat Pack good looks, he is tired now, bags under his eyes, pouring his fifth cup of coffee at a cafe in downtown Fort Lauderdale. The fifty-eight-year-old spent most of his life asleep at this lunchtime hour. ar[ These days, Shaw hustles his legacy, trying to sell a biopic to Hollywood. He drops names says a book is in the works, too. He likes to hand out pictures of himself from the late 1960s, when he was in his prime, all dark-suited Ocean's 11. For nearly three decades, he was a member of the Dinnerset Gang.

Dominick "Dom" Latella, Peter Salerno, and Shaw had just the requisite number of mob connections to feel untouchable. Salerno was a gymnast who ran a construction company by day, able to hoist himself onto anyone's second-floor deck. Latella was the ladies' man, wooing the hostesses of dinner parties. Shaw was a pry guy who could defeat any lock, a skill he later used to reincarnate himself by making instructional videos and hosting seminars for rich folks on how to burglarproof their homes.

The Dinnerset method was simple and clever: The wealthy don't activate alarm systems when they're at home. While the privileged dined on lobsters, the cooks and maids distracted, the Gang slipped through French doors and headed for the treasure-filled master bedroom.

They would hit several houses a night, dressed in black turtlenecks, pants, ski-masks, and tread-traceless Clarks Wallabee loafers. They wore gardening gloves, the thin felt allowing them a better feel. Leather gloves made it easier to drop stuff.

One of the Dinnerset's many rules: Don't look at photographs on night-stands — ever.

"Don't want any heartstrings pulled," says Shaw.

In case a "beef" occurred—interruptions from the police or a homeowner—Salerno always carried a self-addressed manila envelope. They'd run from the house and he would stuff the stolen gems inside, pop it in a mailbox in the neighborhood, and mail the jewels to himself.

They fenced their loot through a mall-based jewelry store. Their biggest score, the FBI says, was twelve million dollars worth of goodies from Ethel DuPont's Palm Beach mansion.

Shaw went to prison in 1975, walked in 1986, and vowed to become a man of God. When that became unprofitable, he went back to stealing. This time he worked with his son, Randy Shaw. A beef happened one night in Boca Raton in 1990, and Randy was arrested. Walter ran. The authorities had nothing on the senior Shaw, but went after him anyway. Randy went to prison and is out now.

Father and son don't have much of a relationship, Shaw says. This admission makes him tear up.

Shaw grew up in Fort Lauderdale, and says he became a thief as homage to his father, Walter L. Shaw, who went to prison when Walter was a teenager. Dad, a phone company employee, had invented a way to illegally make long-distance calls, a technique he sold to the mafia. Full of boyish anger, Shaw junior dropped out of high school, met his first wife, promptly got her pregnant, and concentrated on becoming a criminal.

"I never thought that I'd do something legitimate, it seemed like bullshit to try that hard and earn nothing," he says.

Latella and Salerno, who preceded him at the game of jewel thieving, made Shaw take a Smithsonian gemology correspondence course to learn the 4 C's (clarity, carat, cut, and color). The three plowed through publications for the rich—Forbes, Fortune, the Financial Times, Architectural Digest, look-ing for suckers. Shaw learned how to navigate rafts and boats, better to get to those big daddy abodes along Florida's canals.

Meanwhile, the thieves' families flourished. They vacationed together and taught their sons the business. It's impossible to keep track of Dinnerset family members and their criminal records without looking at a family tree. There was so much cash lying around that Pete's wife, Gloria, and Dom's wife, Sandra, say they used to stuff envelopes with twenty thousand dollars like most housewives would do scrapbooking.

It's unclear if the Gang's extended family is still working. In 2004, Shaw's students Dale McClain and Anthony Greulich were caught creeping in a Boca Raton neighborhood. Homes patrolled by guards in Boca, Delray Beach, and Miami were hit in 2002. One victim, a Delray Beach doctor, had every piece of jewelry he'd ever given his wife swiped.

Although they live a short distance apart, Shaw and Latella will likely never speak again. Their hate has grown over the years, amplified by a history of double-crosses and, ultimately, by information Latella gave to the cops about the Gang.

Shaw is vague about how he's earning money, except to say he "has a wad," stashed somewhere.

Lately, he has reincarnated himself as a preacher, capturing the easily swayed at churches in South Florida with his tales of sin and redemption.

He picks up the tab and hands me another flyer with his picture on it, saying he's testifying at a Fort Lauderdale church soon.

To the jewel thief, it's better to be infamous than forgotten.