A Portland man appeared Tuesday in Clark County Superior Court on suspicion of stealing Native American artwork worth more than $300,000 from an elderly Vancouver woman’s home, where he worked as an in-home care provider.
John L. Kalamafoni, 22, and his girlfriend, Toakase F. Tovo, 19, allegedly stole more than 130 pieces of artwork in 2011 and 2012 from 91-year-old Margaret Sotta, who has dementia. They sold the items to collectors and antiques dealers around the Portland area, according to a court affidavit.
Tovo was arrested earlier this month and charged with first-degree theft, first-degree trafficking in stolen property and two counts of second-degree possession of stolen property. Kalamafoni, who was arrested Monday on a warrant, faces the same charges. He is scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 7. Judge David Gregerson held Kalamafoni on $100,000 because of his history of failing to appear in court and appointed Vancouver attorney Steven Rucker to defend him.
Sotta’s adult children have said Sotta is completely dependent on her caregivers.
Her husband, Robert Sotta, was an avid collector of Native American artwork, including pottery, blankets, baskets and statues. He died in 2011 and left his art collection to his wife.
He had hired private in-home care provider Lavinia’s Home Care and Placement Agency to care for him and his wife 24 hours a day. Owner Lavinia Tovo and members of her family, including her daughter, Toakase Tovo, provided the care, according to the court affidavit.
In October 2012, Margaret Sotta had to be taken to a hospital for undisclosed medical problems. Her children decided that she needed a higher-skilled in-home care provider and terminated services with Lavinia’s Home Care, the affidavit says.
After the termination, Margaret Sotta’s daughter, Teresa Sotta, noticed that many pieces of the Native American artwork were missing from her mother’s house in Vancouver’s Village at Fisher’s Landing neighborhood.
The Sotta children conducted an inventory and found that at least 108 pieces of artwork were missing from the home. The artwork is valued at about $320,000.
Teresa Sotta reported the alleged theft to Vancouver police on Oct. 15, 2012. The Sotta children, who suspected someone from Lavinia Tovo’s family was to blame, also hired private investigators to try to find out who stole the artwork.
Investigators found some of the stolen items on an art gallery website, according to the court affidavit. They found a Portland antiques dealer and two Native American art collectors who said they purchased pieces of artwork from people matching the descriptions of Toakase Tovo and her boyfriend, Kalamafoni.
Vancouver police Detective Jane Easter said in the affidavit that she also recovered a stolen statue, which Kalamafoni had allegedly sold to downtown Vancouver’s Accent on Antiques and Collectibles, 1911 Main St.
A private investigator and a Portland Police Bureau detective visited the couple’s home in Portland in February 2013 and questioned them about the accusations, according to the affidavit.
During the interview, the couple admitted that they had been stealing artwork from Margaret Sotta’s home since October 2011, the affidavit says.
Lavinia Tovo told The Columbian earlier this month that she didn’t know about the thefts. She said her business is not in operation at this time because of a lack of clients.
The Lavinia’s Home Care website states that the business has been in operation since 1996 and serves Clark County and Oregon’s Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties.
Lavinia’s Home Care is a registered trade name for the company Armani Concrete & Masonry, which has an address in Camas. Its business license in Oregon, under a Portland post office box address, has expired and was not renewed.
