Ex-TRA President Charged With 3 Felonies

Edward Renehan Jr., former executive director of the Theodore Roosevelt Association from March 2005 to July 2006, turned himself in Wednesday, March 26th to the Nassau County Courthouse in Garden City after a grand jury indicted him on three felony charges.
The Valley Stream native who now lives in Rhode Island was charged grand larceny and criminal possession of a stolen property in the theft of a letter written by Theodore Roosevelt in 1918 about his son Quentin’s death in World War I, was stolen from the TRA and was sent to an auction house in Manhattan to be sold.
Renehan was also charged with criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree; he is accused of forging a letter purporting to be signed by his predecessor, John A. Gable, giving Renehan ownership of the letter.
The Roosevelt letter was returned to the TRA after the auction house, Swann Galleries, questioned the ownership, prompting the investigations. However, investigators are probing whether any other items were taken.
TRA Immediate Past President Norman Parsons acknowledged, “We don’t know how many items are missing. It is still under investigation.”
Renehan is also under federal investigation by the National Park Service for the theft of three letters: two by Abraham Lincoln and one by George Washington, from the vault of the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site in Manhattan.
Nevertheless Renehan’s lawyer Peter Brill was clear to point out that, “They are two separate investigations. One is focusing solely on the so-called Quentin that is the only one that can definitively be proven to have come from the Muttontown office. That is only one that Nassau County has jurisdiction over.”
Brill expects the prosecutors to present "the auction records, which have been subpoenaed, and will indicate that Ed Renehan was the consignor."
However Brill reasoned that his client was diagnosed being bipolar in the summer of 2007. “He hadn’t been diagnosed bipolar until after the fact. When you are bipolar you get these feeling of grandiosity and self-importance. I am sure that he felt that he was not only invincible but that he was doing the right thing in some twisted way, “ Brill said. “Later on, having been medicated and treated, he realized that his actions were not appropriate and that at least some of the self-justification of when that happened had to do with those feelings. He thought he was smarter, better and more intelligent that everybody else.”
Brill does not believe this will go to trial. “It would be our hope that we would not have to litigate,” he stated.
Renehan was released without bail pending an April 21 court date.
-Faith Rackoff reprinted from Oyster Bay Guardian 4/11/08