By: Jennifer Peltz, Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP).- A wine steward who served time in California after going on a bicoastal binge of plucking pricey art off gallery walls and using it to adorn his own home was sentenced Tuesday to prison in New York. Mark Lugo said simply, “I’m sorry,” as a judge sentenced him to one to three years behind bars in New York, though he could be released in six months if he succeeds in a boot camp-style program. Lugo, 31, previously pleaded guilty to taking a $350,000 drawing by Cubist painter Fernand Leger from a lobby gallery at Manhattan’s Carlyle Hotel in June. In the California case, he also admitted to snatching a $275,000 Picasso drawing called “Tete de Femme” (“Head of a Woman”) from the Weinstein Gallery in San Francisco in July. He finished