New Jersey trucker imprisoned over Goya theft

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New Jersey truck driver who admitted stealing the Francisco de Goya painting "Children with a Cart" while it was in transit to a museum in New York was sentenced on Wednesday to five years in prison.

Steven Lee Olson, 49, and his accomplice, restaurant worker Roman Szurko, 27, both pleaded guilty in December to conspiring to steal the 1778 painting that was being lent by Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio, to the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Szurko was sentenced to one year in prison. The U.S. attorney's office did not give a reason for the different sentences but said the judge took into account the defendants' criminal histories, if any, among other factors.

The two men broke into the truck carrying the painting in a parking lot in November. They later tried to claim a $50,000 reward offered by the Toledo Museum, claiming they had discovered it in a basement wall of Olson's home.

The painting had been insured for $1 million.

(Reporting by Claudia Parsons; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)