DeSIMONE

PROVIDENCE — A convicted tax fraud and high-powered art dealer from Johnston, Rocco P. DeSimone, escaped from a federal prison camp in New Jersey on Saturday, and his wife is charged with helping him, federal authorities said yesterday.

DeSimone, 55, of 103 Hopkins Ave., is believed to have been dropped off in Warwick on Monday, and he was still on the lam yesterday, Deputy U.S. Marshal C.J. Wyant said.

DeSimone fled the Federal Correctional Institution in Fairton, N.J., which has a prison camp housing minimum-security male offenders. “He didn’t just escape from Attica,” Wyant said. “It’s federal camp. I always equate it to a college dorm. He basically walked out.”

Authorities suspect DeSimone’s wife, Gail DeSimone, picked him up in a rental car after flying from Rhode Island to Philadelphia on Saturday, Wyant said. Authorities suspect that she drove him to Putnam, Conn., and that someone else later drove him to Warwick, Wyant said.

Gail DeSimone surrendered to federal agents on Monday after a complaint was issued charging her with harboring an escaped prisoner.

“I don’t know why he would escape from a prison and come to Rhode Island,” Wyant said. “But we have charged his wife, and we are trying to figure out where else he could go.”

Wyant said two teams of federal marshals and FBI agents were on the streets in Rhode Island yesterday looking for DeSimone, who is described as being 5 feet 10 inches tall, 220 pounds, with brown hair and green eyes.

A “Wanted” poster urges people with information on DeSimone’s whereabouts to call the U.S. Marshals at (401) 528-5300. Anyone who sees him should call 911 and then call the marshals, the poster says. “DeSimone is not considered dangerous but should not be approached by civilians,” the poster says.

Wyant said, “He is not a fugitive in a crime of murder or rape, but he clearly walked away from a federal prison. So he is not thinking clearly and he’s always a danger to the community.”

DeSimone escaped just two days after FBI agents searched his home as part of an investigation into suspected fraud and money laundering, federal authorities said. The agents seized numerous items, including a $180,000 Ford GT sports car, Japanese swords and artifacts, Wyant said.

At 6 a.m. on Saturday, Gail DeSimone took a US Airways flight from Rhode Island to Philadelphia, according to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent in federal court. She called her husband at the prison early that afternoon, and at 5 p.m. she rented a Volkswagen Jetta from Hertz Rent A Car in Philadelphia, according to the affidavit.

The Fairton prison is 50 miles southeast of Philadelphia. And Gail DeSimone has visited her husband at the prison on Saturdays in the past, Wyant said.

Prison officials noticed Rocco DeSimone was missing when they did an inmate count at 7 p.m. Saturday, and they believe he escaped sometime between 5 and 7 p.m. Saturday.

On Sunday morning, an FBI agent saw Gail DeSimone drive the Pennsylvania rental car from her home in Johnston, according to the affidavit.

“Ms. DeSimone contacted me after I called her son Derek DeSimone and requested that she speak to me,” the agent wrote in the affidavit. “At the time I spoke to Ms. DeSimone, I heard a male voice in the background.”

The agent said she also contacted another son, Rocco DeSimone Jr., and asked him to have his mother cooperate with authorities because they believed she had helped her husband escape. “He replied, ‘I know, I know,’ and indicated that he would talk to his mother,” the agent wrote. “However, Ms. DeSimone has not yet come forward.”

The affidavit said federal agents searched the home Sunday morning, with Gail DeSimone’s consent, but did not find Rocco DeSimone there.

“While at the house, I observed the rental car in the driveway of the house and saw that the passenger seat had been lowered forward all the way, which would allow someone to lie down in the car without detection,” the agent wrote.

Gail DeSimone returned the Jetta to a rental agency in Warwick later in the day, authorities said.

Wyant said Gail DeSimone “has not been forthcoming.” She was charged with harboring her husband after his escape. Magistrate Judge Lincoln D. Almond of U.S. District Court released her, but ordered that she be confined to her house.

Gail DeSimone’s lawyer, Robert B. Mann, declined to comment yesterday.

In August 2005, Rocco DeSimone, then 52, was sentenced to 27 months in prison for filing a false tax return. A federal jury had found him guilty of fraudulently claiming income from the sale of art as a long-term capital gain rather than ordinary income, to avoid paying higher taxes.

DeSimone also was fined $100,000 and ordered to pay all income taxes due. U.S. District Judge William E. Smith determined that DeSimone had avoided paying between $200,000 and $325,000 through the false tax return.

DeSimone served about six months of his sentence before being released on bail pending the outcome of an appeal. But the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal in June of last year. DeSimone’s bail was then revoked, and he was returned to federal custody to serve the balance of his sentence. Federal authorities estimate that he was to be released in about nine months.

During a five-day trial in March 2005, the government presented evidence that in 1999, DeSimone had brokered the sale of three paintings for $8.3 million: Canal at Zaandam, by Claude Monet, for $4.65 million; Les Mouettes, by Henri Matisse, for $650,000; and Jeune Fille Blonde, by Pierre Auguste Renoir, for $3 million.

Prosecutors said that DeSimone told Janet Traeger Salz, the New York owner of Canal at Zaandam, that he had instead sold the painting for $2.7 million, pocketing most of the difference. Yet on his 1999 tax return, DeSimone reported only $1 million of that income.

The government also said DeSimone falsely claimed the $1 million as a long-term capital gain rather than ordinary income, which is taxed at a higher rate.

After DeSimone was found guilty, Smith allowed him to remain free pending sentencing. Smith turned down a request by the prosecution that $100,000 bail be imposed, saying, “To flee would be colossally stupid. He’s too intelligent for that.”

tmorgan@projo.com