San Juan Hill revolver was stolen from Sagamore Hill in 1991
NOVEMBER 14--Sixteen years after the theft of a priceless pistol used by Teddy Roosevelt while leading the Rough Riders at the Battle of San Juan Hill, federal prosecutors have charged a man with pilfering the weapon from the late president's former Long Island home.
Anthony Tulino, 55, was named in a misdemeanor criminal information filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Central Islip, New York (a copy of the charging document can be found below). Tulino, a postal worker, was charged with the theft of the antiquity, a Colt revolver that disappeared in April 1990 from the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site. Tulino is a former New York resident who relocated to DeLand, a central Florida city.
It was in DeLand earlier this year that FBI agents recovered Roosevelt's pistol, after a tipster reported being shown the weapon by Tulino's wife, who reported that her husband kept the weapon hidden in a closet.
The .38-caliber Colt (seen above in a photo provided by Sagamore Hill) is of particular historical significance since it was recovered in 1898 from the sunken Battleship Maine by a salvage crew led by William Cowles, Roosevelt's brother-in-law. Months later, Roosevelt carried the 1895 Colt in the charge up Cuba's San Juan Hill.