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Hollywood's art-collecting community breathed a sigh of relief on Saturday, when the FBI announced that Steven Spielberg was an "unknowing victim" of a dealer who sold him a Norman Rockwell painting that was stolen from a Missouri gallery 34 years ago, freeing them from the paranoia that each high-end piece the discriminating director once admired in their homes might soon disappear under mysterious circumstances and "accidentally" surface in his office. Reports the LAT:

Spielberg's spokesman, Marvin Levy, said the director's staff contacted the FBI several weeks ago after seeing a bulletin from the agency's Art Crime Team seeking clues about the theft of the "Russian Schoolroom" oil painting.

"The second anybody said, 'I think we have that painting,' [our] office got a hold of the FBI," Levy said.

Special Agent Chris Calarco of the FBI's Art Crime Team and Jessica Todd Smith, curator of American art for the Huntington Library, inspected the painting Friday afternoon at Spielberg's offices on the Universal Studios lot. The filmmaker was not present.

"He's an absolutely unknowing victim in this," Calarco said of Spielberg.

The FBI's visit to Spielberg's office at Universal also serendipitously resulted in the return of the three Yorkshire terriers recently stolen at gunpoint from a Koreatown home, when the Art Crimes agent realized that the trio of newly procured puppies nipping at his heels ("Geffie," "Katzie," and "Lil Stevie") during his investigation bore a striking resemblance to the ones he'd recently seen on local news footage. After a DreamWorks employee convinced Calarco that they had "no idea" that the adorable Yorkies obtained from their otherwise reputable puppy broker were kidnapping victims, he immediately cleared Spielberg of any wrongdoing and arranged for the dogs' joyful reunion with their rightful owners.

[Photo; AP]