Terry Helbing, Accused Tenderloin Art Thief, Back in Court

Terry Helbing didn't have a lute. But his room was still the bomb.

​The bizarre saga of Terry Helbing once again winds its way into a San Francisco courtroom today.

Helbing was in April accused of filching art from the botanical garden library, which led to police searching his Single Room Occupancy hotel room. Within they found a lush treasure trove of art, rugs, and other pricey decor valued at more than $100,000. Not surprisingly, Helbing is now facing 38 additional felony counts relating to alleged art theft.

Following Helbing's arrest, SF Weekly discovered that his incredible SRO hotel room was the stuff of legend among Tenderloin community activists.

"I've seen a lot of hoarders' rooms. I've seen bedbugs, cockroaches, and seen mold grow. But I have never, ever seen a unit like that," Jeff Buckley, the Tenderloin Housing Clinic community organizer, told SF Weekly. "And I don't think I'll ever see one again. It was mind-blowing how beautiful it was."

Helbing's cramped domicile featured not only featured museum-quality artwork, he had rigged up museum-quality lighting to accentuate his treasures. "He had very artistically put up this lighting system that brought out certain qualities to the paintings you wouldn't have ordinarily seen when you came into the room," recalls Buckley. "He played with shadows. I was speechless."

In addition to an astounding job with lighting, Helbing had also somehow rigged up a pulley system to suspend his mini-fridge over his toilet. The accused art thief's genius for lighting and engineering was not something he learned from a book; other community workers told us that Helbing is illiterate.

He is currently incarcerated on $95,000 bail.

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