FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – By the time Patrick McIntosh became a wanted man last week for disappearing in a truck with at least $1.5 million in artwork, he had left behind a long line of brokenhearted wives, girlfriends and children, public record and interviews reveal.
The 36-year-old convicted felon returned to jail Wednesday night to face grand-theft charges after authorities found him in a trailer park near Gainesville, Fla., and recovered the truck loaded with furniture, photos, sculptures and rare Milton Avery paintings.
Even though his driver’s license was suspended in 2003, he was hired last month by an art-transport company and was to drive the Budget rental truck to artists, galleries and other clients in New York and other Northeast cities.
“He was capable of doing anything,” said Julie Duncan, 35, of Hollywood, Fla., who said she had a child with him in the late 1980s. “He cheated and ripped off everyone.”
With his perpetual smile and gregarious earnestness, McIntosh could smooth-talk anyone into trusting him, said his family, investigators and the owner of David Jones Fine Art Services, the Boca Raton company that hired him to drive the truck.
“I was not aware there was anything dangerous,” owner David Jones said this week. “He was a great worker, good with people and good with handling things.”
And, he apparently was good with the ladies.
McIntosh has at least three children and another one on the way with three different women, the women and police said. Both of his sons are named after him.
He may be married to two South Florida women – Olga McIntosh, 35, of Dania Beach, and Jennifer McIntosh, 30, of Wellington – both women said and records show.
Recovery of the art was a major relief to Essex, Conn., artist Linda Low Wolcott, 58.
, who was waiting to get her 25 maritime-themed oil paintings delivered from Artist Group Gallery in Palm Beach, where her work was displayed.
Patrick McIntosh, according to Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Detective Mike Mauro, said after his capture that he divorced Olga McIntosh in Virginia in 2002. That divorce could not be confirmed through records. However, local records show he married her in 2003 in Fort Lauderdale.
Olga McIntosh said she never divorced him, even though she wanted to.
Mauro said he will charge Patrick McIntosh with bigamy, a felony, if he can prove McIntosh is married to two women.
McIntosh was charged with bigamy in Virginia in August 1993, but the charge may have been reduced to using false information to require marriage license , a misdemeanor, Mauro said. Virginia records were not immediately available.
When McIntosh married Olga Aponte, he already had served three prison terms between 1993 and 2000 for trafficking in stolen property and grand theft, records show.
She said she put up with what she described as his heavy drinking and cocaine use because he was a good father to her son, Patrick Jr., now 3, and daughter, Vanesa, now 4, whom he babysat and played with regularly.
Their troubles started when he stayed away for days and, records show, he was arrested in Broward County in 2003 for selling cocaine and was sent back to prison.
“He always had an excuse for everything,” she said.
It was late 2004, once he’d gotten out of prison and left wife Olga, that the 6-foot-9-inch, “fabulous looking” Patrick McIntosh caught the eye of Jennifer Lary at a happy hour in a West Palm Beach bar, she said. Within a month, the couple was engaged, though she insisted on waiting a year before tying the knot.
“He swept me off my feet,” said Jennifer McIntosh, a paralegal. “He’s attentive, loving and says everything a woman could possibly want to hear. He said he had never been married, had no kids and wanted to have a family.”
In December 2005 the couple married in Las Vegas, records show. Jennifer McIntosh became pregnant shortly afterward and is expecting their child. She said she began noticing that her husband drank an awful lot.
One day in March, Patrick Mcintosh told Jennifer he had to work late. He never returned.
Soon, she said, credit card companies began calling, saying her credit limit had been exceeded. She said she learned that Patrick McIntosh had copied down the numbers and used them to wire himself money from Western Union.
About $1,500 in the hole, Jennifer McIntosh decided to pawn her jewelry to pay off the bills. But then she discovered her two diamond rings, an opal necklace and her college ring missing, she said. She suspected her missing husband.
Jennifer McIntosh searched through phone bills, called frequently dialed numbers and made a shocking discovery when she called Olga McIntosh.
“I called and said, “This is Patrick’s wife,’ and she said she was Patrick’s wife,” Jennifer McIntosh recalled. “She said she tried to get a divorce and he wouldn’t agree.”
As Jennifer McIntosh learned later, after he left her, her husband charmed yet another woman, Dawn Divine, 32, and moved into her home west of West Palm Beach with her and her children in March.
Divine said she met her “knight in shining armor” when he came into a West Palm Beach bar where she worked.
“I wasn’t looking for nobody,” she said, “but he treated me like a queen and said he was going to marry me and take me to an 18-acre place in Tennessee.”
But he left her with all his belongings on April 17, the day before he hit the road with the 24-foot truck loaded with valuable art.
Patrick McIntosh was supposed to pick up more art in Naples but never showed up. Authorities followed his credit-card trail and arrested him Wednesday night.
He was staying with the sister of Nancy Sheeler, an Ocala woman with whom McIntosh had a son 18 years ago, Detective Mauro said. That son, also named Patrick, also was at the trailer.
McIntosh told detectives he didn’t steal anything and had no interest in selling the art.
“He said he went there to visit his son, but he stayed longer than he expected,” Mauro said.
The truck was turned over Thursday to David Jones, who planned to head back to Boca Raton, inventory the contents and deliver them back to their owners, Mauro said.
Recovery of the art was a major relief for Essex, Conn., artist Linda Low Wolcott, 58, who was waiting to get her 25 maritime-themed oil paintings delivered from Artist Group Gallery in Palm Beach, where her work was displayed.
“I haven’t had a night of sleep since I found out they were missing. This is my livelihood,” she said. “I’m just glad it’s coming back.”
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