New York, NY – (NYPOST)

There was nothing artful about this crime.

A Brooklyn couple was busted trying to sell a painting stolen off the wall of a Manhattan museum to an undercover cop, authorities said.

Denis Ryjenko, 35, and his girlfriend, Natella Croussouloudis, 42, were arrested Sept. 3 as they tried to unload a small masterpiece, “Himalayas,” by the prolific early 20th-century Russian artist Nicholas Roerich. One of them even told the “buyer” the painting was hot and warned him not to hang it on his gallery wall. The $125,000 painting had disappeared along with a second work by Roerich on June 24.

The second piece — titled “Talung Monastery” and worth $70,000 — was mysteriously returned by mail to the Nicholas Roerich Museum on West 107th Street on Aug. 14. But investigators caught wind that the couple had “Himalayas” when an informant told them the pair had been showing it off in their Midwood apartment, saying they were hoping to sell it for $40,000.

The informant told the couple he would help introduce them to a buyer, who was actually an undercover officer posing as an art collector. 

On Sept. 3, Ryjenko and Croussouloudis — carrying the painting in a blue paper shopping bag — traveled to a Lower East Side Starbucks to meet with the detective, police said. While Ryjenko waited outside, Croussouloudis met with the phony collector and asked for $20,000 for the painting. She even warned him that the work of art had been stolen and that he would be unable to freely display it in his gallery, police said. 

The cop then asked her to come with him to his gallery where he would give her the money. As she and Ryjenko walked with him up Allen Street, they were arrested. A law-enforcement source said the couple denied having stolen the painting.

But Ryjenko, who has a long criminal record, pleaded guilty in Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday to criminal possession of stolen property in return for four months in jail.

“I knew it was stolen,” he told Judge Anthony Ferrara. “I didn’t know if it was real or not.”

Croussouloudis, who is a German national, according to Correction Department records, waived her appearance and was held on $20,000 bail.

The landlord of the building where the two had been living said they owed $7,500 back rent and had recently had their power and gas shut off for failure to pay their bills.

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An online friend writes in telling us he went into Bank of America looking for a cashier’s check or money order, and the teller was so embarrassed of his bank’s high fees — for customers, mind you — he recommended he buy one elsewhere. He writes:

I recently moved and started a checking account with Bank of America. I needed to send a friend who is incarcerated some money for commissary so he can buy food.

Bank of America - fees STUPID!

I went to BoA and asked for either a cashier’s check or money order whichever was cheaper as the prison will accept either. The cashier told me that it would be $7.00 for a Cashier’s Check or $5.00 for a Money Order. Sympathetically she suggested that I go to the post office and get a money order there for $1.10

These are the changes BofA applies if you have an account. If you don’t have an account they will simply refuse to provide either a money order or cashier’s check.

Props to the BofA teller for the customer service that went above and beyond. So, Consumerists, is Bank of America alone on these exorbitant fees, or have any of you found yourselves in similar situations while trying to give prisoner friends money for cigarettes and shivs — uh, I mean food?

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Major League Baseball announced on Wednesday the suspension of a Dominican prospect named Damian Arredondo for testing positive for steroids.

Many Dominican prospects have been suspended for performance-enhancing drugs in the last two years, but in a twist, this prospects real name is not Damian Arredondo.

Yankees sign 16 year old - or not!

The Yankees believed that was his name when they signed him as a 16-year-old in July — before his DNA was checked and he was tested for performance-enhancing drugs.

On Wednesday, the commissioner’s office announced that the player had failed a steroids test in July and that he would be suspended. In the news release, the player was identified as Damian Arredondo.

A spokesman for Major League Baseball declined to comment when asked if the player’s true identity was known.

Whatever his birth name is, he is a free agent. If he signs a new contract with a major league team, he will presumably have to serve a 50-game suspension for his positive steroid test before being eligible to play under his real name.

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ISTANBUL (from Reuters) – Nine women tricked into thinking they were reality TV show contestants and lured into an Istanbul villa were rescued by Turkish military police after two months confinement, a police spokesman said Thursday.

Cameras in the villa filmed the women 24-hours a day, providing a live stream of images for Internet users who had paid to access the footage, the spokesman said.

The women, all from Turkey, according to the Turkish press, had answered an advert seeking contestants for a “Big Brother”-style television show. They passed an audition and selection process before entering the house.

“The women’s parents called the police after they didn’t hear anything from them. The military police went to investigate and heard the women screaming from inside,” the spokesman said, adding the raid took place Monday.

Police detained three men and prosecutors are investigating, he said.

According to Turkish media, the women had signed a contract agreeing they would have no contact with their families and would face a fine of 50,000 Turkish lira if they left early.

(Reporting by Selcuk Gokoluk; Writing by Alexandra Hudson)

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