“BEYOND FICTION”: Fake Names…And Real Criminals

In His Essay, “Lost And Found-The Mumford Basquiat Venice Collection” For The Orlando Museum Of Art’s Exhibition Catalog, Los Angeles Attorney Pierce O’Donnell Promised “The True Story”

Instead, O’Donnell Delivered A Work Riddled With Lies

In the final installment of my series about the Orlando Museum’s exhibition of a purported collection of “lost” Basquiat artworks, I expose false assertions O’Donnell published in the exhibit’s catalog, more exclusive details about his partners, “Billy” and “Lee”, and their direct connection with convicted Pollock forger, John Re. O’Donnell’s essay is sprawling, and he makes multiple assertions — many I know to be false.

I refute them in this piece.

INTRODUCTION

On August 20, 2014, Pierce O’Donnell filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition in United States Bankruptcy court for the Central District of California.

Seeking to discharge nearly $8,000,000 in debt, O’Donnell was experiencing significant financial difficulty.

An attorney who’d made a name for himself litigating cases involving large corporations and famous people, O’Donnell was on the balls of his ass.

But he had an artwork that “may have been painted by Jackson Pollock”… with a $175,000 claim against it.

O’Donnell noted in the “description and value of property subject to lien” taken from his bankruptcy filing (shown above), the “painting is unauthenticated and believed to have no present market value”.

But, by 2016, he was back in Los Angeles Superior Court — representing himself — in a dispute over a purported “$100 million Jackson Pollack painting”.

In October 2016, O’Donnell told the Los Angeles Times that he was “a co-owner of the painting, titled “Pink Spring,” with a business partner he’d entered into an agreement with to acquire the canvas in 2011 with the intention of selling it for a profit.”

O’Donnell said the partner, Maitreya Kadre, a former client who works as an art adviser and New Age spiritualist, had obstructed efforts to bring the painting to market, including attempts to have it authenticated as a work by the famed American Abstract Expressionist.

As a result, the painting, which O’Donnell said he paid $200,000 for and is entitled to 30 percent of any proceeds from its sale, was collecting dust in a storage locker in Southern California.

The suit accused Kadre of breach of contract and fiduciary duty.

A settlement was ultimately reached, with O’Donnell obtaining ownership of the painting.

THE KARLSSON CASE

In June 2014, two months before O’Donnell filed his Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition, the men he later described in an essay in Orlando Museum’s Basquiat exhibition catalog as “Billy” and “Lee”, the men behind the “Mumford auction” collection, were sued in an art fraud case in California’s Central District.

“Billy”, whose real name is Michael William Force, and “Lee”, who is John Leo Mangan, III, and others were sued by Anders Karlsson “in connection with two multiple inter-locking fraudulent schemes, mostly involving fake or forged artworks of renowned deceased artists and fake or forged authentication and/or provenance documentation, among conspiring Defendants acting in concert to effect and conceal the schemes.” Raven Art, Inc., a Colorado company controlled by Mangan, Taryn Burns, Art Possible, LLC, a Florida company controlled by Mangan, Art Force, LLC, a Florida company controlled by Force and Burns, and John Re were named as defendants.

(As I revealed in my February 21, 2022 post, Mangan was convicted twice for drug trafficking, was a stock swindler in the mid-1990’s, and ran a “debt consolidation” scheme in the mid-aughts that drew FTC attention in 2007. It ended up costing Mangan and his wife, Michelle, nearly $400,000 in fines.)

In the lawsuit, Karlsson alleged he had made “capital investments” for the purchase of “ostensibly authentic, renowned artworks with ostensibly valid provenance, all or most of which are in fact fraudulent, forged and/or fakes” with cumulative investment “of at least an estimated $2,823,500”.

In addition, Karlsson alleged the “Art Possible Defendants” (Mangan) and
“Art Force Defendants” (Force, Burns) purchased an overpriced “pleasure yacht” primarily for their benefit, an investment by Karlsson of an estimated $1,355,000.

An order dismissing the action was entered on May 19, 2015 based on “shoddy filings” by Karlsson’s attorney, and the defendants moved for attorney fees. In the judgment of Jan. 4, 2016, District Court Judge Manuel Real awarded them $91,670.16.

Karlsson appealed to the Ninth Circuit, but the District Court’s dismissal was upheld.

But here’s the thing: in late 2014, both Force and Burns were subpoenaed to give testimony in front of a Grand Jury in the Southern District of New York. The Grand Jury ultimately brought forth the indictment of John Re, an alleged art forger and convicted currency counterfeiter — and a co-defendant in the Karlsson case.

In 1995, Re had been arrested for being part of a Suffolk County, New York, counterfeit money ring that created fake $20 bills on a home printing press. He pleaded guilty to criminally possessing a forged instrument and was sentenced to two to seven years in jail.

Between 2005 and 2014, Re, a resident of East Hampton with some history of dealing in art, sold dozens of paintings purported to be by Pollock and Willem de Kooning. One of the largest victims of this fraud spent more than $800,000 on some sixty works of art. The buyer did not do this blindly; he was encouraged by several “experts” who considered the paintings to be credible.

Re continued to sell the imitations even after appraisers determined they were not authentic, prosecutors said. In one case, they said, when a victim confronted Re, he threatened violence, claiming that the person should be wary of his alleged connections to “organized crime”.

John Re pleaded guilty in December 2014 to wire fraud and admitted that he “knowingly and fraudulently fabricated” the provenance for the large number of purported Pollocks. Re sold many of these works of art online (eBay) and also admitted to fraudulently inflating the price by engaging in shill bidding (entering bids to artificially increase the price). Re was sentenced to four years in prison and agreed to forfeit $2,500,000, representing the proceeds of his sales of fraudulent art.

And that’s the story of the men described as attorney Pierce O’Donnell as “Billy” and “Lee”…and some of their friends.

As for “Lee”, his criminal history is literally hair-raising: John Leo Mangan III is a Colorado man with multiple identities and a shocking criminal past.

Mangan was convicted in 1979 and 1991 in federal drug-trafficking cases, and the records of both cases are sealed. Mangan, then using the alias “John Powers”, was indicted March 21, 1986 in United States District Court for the Southern District of California for Conspiracy to Import Narcotics — also sealed.

In October 1996, Mangan (known then as “Leo J. Mangan”), was chief executive officer of Comprehensive Environmental Systems Inc., based in West Babylon, New York. Mangan was one of six men, including a former lawyer for the Securities and Exchange Commission, that were arrested and charged with securities fraud for allegedly hiding their control of two small companies and inflating the companies’ stock prices.

Mangan was accused of swindling the firm by manipulating its stock and funneling money overseas through Canadian banks. Mangan, and two other defendants (Grant Curtis and Timothy Masley) were charged with issuing millions of shares of discounted stock, either in the names of fictitious people, real people unaware that the stock was being issued in their names, or people acting under their direction.

The discounted stock, some obtained for as little as a dime, was then funneled into accounts shared by Mangan, Curtis and Masley in Canada and Britain and later sold at prevailing stock market prices, the indictment said.

Comprehensive’s connection to the massive stock fraud scheme began in mid-1993 when Leo J. Mangan was named the company’s chief operating officer.

What investors did not know, and what should have been revealed in SEC filings, was that Mangan had a criminal record, including eight arrests, the earliest dating to 1972 and the most recent in 1991.

Most of the arrests involved drug possession and distribution.

THREE CRIMINALS WALK INTO A MUSEUM…AND ONLY ONE OF THEM IS A LAWYER

IN THE SPRING OF 2017, “BILLY” APPROACHED ME

In his exhibition catalog essay, Pierce O’Donnell claims “Billy” Force told him in 2017 that “he and two others owned six paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat which they had acquired five years earlier.”

In 2012, they had purchased them for a small sum from an auctioneer who had bought them from a Los Angeles art storage company. The six paintings, along with other Basquiats, had been stored there since 1982 by a celebrated African American television writer, Thaddeus Q. Mumford, Jr., who had paid
Basquiat $5,000 in cash for them. Mumford’s failure to pay about
$7,000 in past due monthly storage fees led to the paintings being
seized and sold.”

So O’Donnell must have already known Force prior to 2017, although he’s now being coy about his past relationship with the art fraudster.

DAVID DAMANTE ALMOST GAVE THE SCHEME AWAY, BUT PIERCE O’DONNELL RODE IN TO SAVE THE DAY!

In 2017, David Damante, a fraudster I’d covered on my crime/fraud blog (Glistening, Quivering Underbelly) floated an art scam nearly identical to Force and Mangan’s: a “secret” Basquiat purchased at auction from Thaddeus Mumford’s storage unit — with a notarized affidavit signed by Mumford as proof.

The link between Damante and O’Donnell was Lu Quan, a mutual friend of “Billy” Force, his “life partner” Taryn Burns, and David Moyal, purportedly a “friend of Basquiat”. Force, Burns and Moyal had all written letters to the judge who sentenced Quan in 2015 when he pled guilty for his role in the illegal sale of black rhinoceros horns.

By late April 2018, with an authentication issued by Art Encounter of Las Vegas, Damante had parlayed his painting (called “Helicopter”) and documents into a contract with a Scottsdale, AZ auction house.

The auction house sought an opening bid of $5.0 million, and estimated the painting’s value between $18,000,000-$24,000,000.

When everything hit the fan, and the dust settled, I learned in 2018 that Pierce O’Donnell, at the request of Taryn Burns (“Billy” Force’s “life partner”) had personally represented Lu Quan, a convicted criminal who’d run a San Francisco art gallery and just happened to have a “lost Basquiat” — the same backstory as O’Donnell is now spinning in Orlando.

Was it too close for comfort, or just a case of “that guy stole my scam”?

“BILLY” CALLS PIERCE TO DANGLE $170 MILLION…But There’s A Catch!

O’Donnell claimed the “only reason that Billy was calling me — and not Sotheby’s or Christies auction houses — was an unfortunate fact: no authoritative source had authenticated them.”

O’Donnell, a lawyer who’s also an author and screenwriter, really likes a plot twist:

“Why had they not been authenticated? Because these six paintings
were in Mumford’s storage locker for 30 years until 2012 — the year in
which the Basquiat Committee disbanded and long after the scholarly
works had been published. For all intents and purposes, these
creations were lost to the art world.”

Like that presumably fake Pollock he owned, the one he’d been trying for years to authenticate.

After O’Donnell spent his “first weekend with Basquiat”, comparing the photographs of the six paintings “Billy” had displayed for him in his Los Angeles law office, O’Donnell jotted down his “initial amateur’s impression on a legal pad: “striking similarities to many authenticated Basquiats — crowns, halos, signatures, skulls, ghosts, bats, handwriting, and overall look and feel.”

O’Donnell wants you to believe “he was hooked”.

But O’Donnell drops a huge reveal in the essay:

On Monday, I called Billy wanting to know what he had in mind for
me to do.

“We want you to get them authenticated and sold,” Billy replied. “We
have taken them as far as we can with no success.”

“Why me?” I followed up.

“I am familiar with your efforts with the Pollock,” Billy answered.

Billy was referring to my efforts since 2011 to authenticate and sell
a majestic 3.5’ x 8’ Jackson “drip painting” attributed to legendary
Jackson Pollock. Like the six Basquiats, the Pollock had not been included
in the artist’s catalogue raisonné or authenticated by a panel
of experts selected by the family. In a real sense, they had been lost —
the Basquiats in storage and the Pollock in a private home — during
the time period when they could have been blessed as authentic.

(Ooh, wait. I know this story: John Re, convicted Pollock forger, and friend of “Billy” Force and “Lee” Mangan, claimed that he discovered a cache of Pollock’s paintings while renovating the basement of a Hamptons home whose previous owner, George Schulte, was a close friend of Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner. John Re pleaded guilty to wire fraud and admitted that he “knowingly and fraudulently fabricated” the provenance for the large number of purported Pollocks.)

“My efforts trying to sell the Pollock are hardly a reason to engage me since I haven’t sold it yet,” I quipped.

“Your Pollock is the real deal,” Billy assured me. “Just be patient.

We are supposed to believe that “Billy”, Michael William Force, the man who received a court order in 2014 compelling him to testify in a grand jury investigation of his associate, Pollock forger John Re, is now telling O’Donnell his “Pollock” is real?

When he wrote this crap, I’ll bet Pierce O’Donnell never thought I’d come along. Someone who knew this was just another bullshit plot device utilized by O’Donnell to legitimize a scam I’d independently uncovered in late 2017.

O’Donnell continues:

“Over my four decades in the trenches, cases have been won or lost
based on a single piece of evidence — matching a fingerprint, authenticating
handwriting, forensic analysis, and finding a “smoking gun”
document buried in millions of pages of records. If this sounds like
Perry Mason, it is. Success in the courtroom is 90% perspiration
(preparation) and only 10% inspiration.”

Finding a “smoking gun” document?

Like this strangely revelatory essay in an exhibit of purported Basquiat paintings owned by a man O’Donnell cagily describes as “Lee”?

As I’ve revealed, “Lee” is John Leo Mangan III, a man with a 40+ year criminal and fraud history.

Bet you didn’t think anyone would figure it out, did you Pierce?

On February 18, 2022, two days after the New York Times published its story on the Orlando Museum exhibit, I sent an email to Joann Walfish, the Museum’s Chief Financial Officer, revealing the the real names (and criminal histories) of the two men mentioned in the article. On February 23, 2002, after not hearing from Walfish, I sent a follow-up (which included the original February 18 email) and copied several other Museum department heads — including Aaron De Groft.

No response.

All the major players at the Museum are aware of the true identity of the man at Aaron De Groft’s left in this picture: John Leo Mangan III.

But, O’Donnell persists with the fictive narrative:

“Billy related that a fellow named Lee and he were close pals who
had first met as teenagers in Pompano Beach, Florida in 1974 and
had hung out together for several summers. When I met Lee, he remembered
that “Billy had a special talent even then. He would go
to pawnshops and buy and sell these expensive watches. He had an
insane collection.” Lee got married and moved away, starting several
successful businesses and raising a family. (Right! Mangan’s first drug conviction was in 1979.)

These long-time friends stayed touch [sic]. One way was buying art.
Sometime around 2008, Billy and Lee did a deal together buying a
painting that Billy had “picked.” He needed some cash to purchase it.
Lee happened to have a little extra money that he could contribute to
the cause. From that time on, both friends honed their art collecting
skills. For Billy, it was a career; for Lee, a hobby.”

Oh, Lee had a “little extra money”. In late 2005, Mangan purchased a $1.5 million Boulder property, described as a “trophy home”, before selling it in September 2021 for $3.1 million.

O’Donnell goes on, digging a hole with his own words:

In May of 2012, while out doing what he loved to do (searching for
hidden art treasures), a local art dealer showed Billy a blurry photograph
depicting a number of paintings, some of which appeared to be
signed by a “Jean-Michel.” The dealer asked him if they were worth
anything. Billy replied that he needed to do some research.

Billy was the first person to realize that the cardboard paintings in
Mumford’s storage unit were authentic Basquiats. He wanted to buy
the entire collection, but he did not have the resources at the time,
but his old pal Lee did. Billy telephoned Lee who happened to be
visiting Los Angeles. When Lee picked up, Billy said:

“Get some cash! I’m sending you an address. Meet me there as soon
as possible.”

Wow, what a plot twist! “Billy” was out “picking” and “Lee” just happened to be visiting Los Angeles!

Billy and Lee met at the auctioneer’s home, paid him a modest sum
of cash, and drove away with the entire remaining collection — all
of which were in excellent condition thanks to being stored for 30
years in a climate-controlled facility. Two of the paintings had already
been sold, but Billy went on a quest to recover them. He eventually
found the eBay buyer and bought them back. The original Mumford
Collection was intact.

Lee left California a short time later, moving his family to Boulder,
Colorado. [NOTE: According to publicly available records, Mangan purchased his Boulder home in 2005] He took with him the 19 paintings that are now included in his group of paintings, commonly referred to as “The Mumford
Collection.” After buying the previously sold paintings, Billy has
since maintained the other six paintings, commonly referred to
as the “Basquiat Venice Collection.” Both Billy and Lee knew they
needed to verify the authenticity of these paintings. Lee made the
first breakthrough.

PROVENANCE IN POETRY

O’Donnell continues:
A trip to Colorado to meet Lee, who still had the 19 Basquiats, paid
huge dividends. Lee is engaging, intelligent, and savvy with a quick
wit. A true believer, he had put his proverbial money where his
mouth was, expending tens of thousands of dollars — and countless
hours — in trying to authenticate the paintings since 2012. We immediately
hit it off, sharing a passion for proving that Basquiat was the
indisputable creator. Along with his talented lawyer Rich LiPuma, we
forged a close working relationship as we went forward to establish
that all 25 paintings were authentic.

The story that O’Donnell tells about Thaddeus Mumford has a glaring flaw, too: an interview conducted by Amy and Nancy Harrington in a joint venture with the Writers Guild Foundation on April 20, 2016 in Tarzana, CA apparently belies the fiction about a destitute man in poor health whose paintings were picked up for a song four years before from a “climate-controlled” storage facility.

In the interview, recorded well after the purported 2012 “purchase” of his purported Basquiats by Force and Mangan, Mumford appears to be in good health.

Since 2004, Mumford had been unemployed as Hollywood turned
to younger writers and producers. A creative, versatile luminary for
three decades who wrote hundreds of hours of high-quality television
of varying genres, Mumford had been involuntarily retired. By
2012, he was strapped for money, virtually destitute, and in poor
health. For years, Mumford simply could not afford to pay the modest
monthly fees for his locker.

Mangan himself added to the mess, sticking his foot in his mouth during an interview with Brett Sokol. Writing in a February 16, 2022 piece for the New York Times, Sokol quotes Mangan:

“After buying the paintings, Mangin said he and Force tracked down the screenwriter, who told them over lunch how he had bought the Basquiats in 1982 as an investment on the recommendation of a friend.”

What!

So you want me to believe that 24 years after Basquiat died, Mumford would brag about how prescient he was to purchase the paintings as an investment, but wouldn’t hire an attorney to sue Mangan and Force to get them back?

Come on, I was born at night…but not last night!

In his essay, O’Donnell states:

Mumford had been unable to find a receipt from Basquiat confirming
his purchase. What he did locate, however, was an extraordinary
piece of evidence that literally brought tears of joy to Lee’s eyes. Lee
had obtained from Mumford an untitled, typed poem in my opinion
written by Basquiat. Printed on 1980s-era dot matrix printer paper,
the poem — 21 lines of free verse with three stanzas of seven lines
each — was initialed “JMB” on the bottom.

Bullshit!

Mumford couldn’t find a receipt, but he had something even better — a poem written and signed by Basquiat?

We’re verging into Lifetime TV movie territory now.

ACT THREE: AARON & THE MUSEUM

In the catalog essay, O’Donnell recaps his “four years” on the Basquiat effort.

It was now March 2021. Nearly four years into my Basquiat case.
Despite all my (and Lee’s) successes in securing solid proof of provenance,
unimpeachable scientific support, and consensual validation
by respected connoisseurs as well as the smart, aggressive, and tireless
sales efforts of our dedicated art sellers, it seemed like I had not
advanced at all from where I was the day I started to pursue what
increasingly looked like an impossible dream. I was not yet prepared
to throw in the towel on the Adventure of the Lost Basquiats, but I
was running out of options.

What’s next? A savior? A white knight?

No, it was Aaron.

Aaron De Groft.

In late March, I received an email from a stranger. His name was Dr.
Aaron de Groft, the Director of the Orlando Museum of Art. He did
not waste any time getting to the point.

“Dear Mr. O’Donnell:
“Would you be willing to speak about the Pollock? We would love to celebrate
it and showcase it here in Orlando where we lead the country in
tourism with an excess of 73 million tourists. We would love to promote
it internationally. . . . I have read much about the work. It is right. I
would be happy to fly to LA to talk with you in person. I am happy to talk.
Thank you very much”

And this coming from a guy with a Ph. D.?

Before I responded, I did some research on Dr. De Groft and his
museum. He was the new and only fourth director in the nearly 100
years of the institution. Recently hired after a global talent search,
Dr. De Groft had three degrees in art history, 25 years of experience
as an art curator and museum director, and a specialty in Old Masters
and modern and contemporary art. For 15 years, he ran the prestigious
Muscarelle Museum at the College of William & Mary, mounting
dozens of notable exhibitions featuring works by Michelangelo,
Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Botticelli, important contemporary African
American artists, Titian, Reubens, Cézanne, da Vinci, German expressionists,
and modern artists.

Shit-canned from the Muscarelle Museum after 15 years, is the way I heard it from an off-the-record source.

Back to O’Donnell:

It took a few days before Dr. De Groft and I connected.

“Hello, Dr. De Groft, this is Pierce O’Donnell,” I began. “It is a privilege
to speak with you.”

“The privilege is all mine,” he replied with a tinge of a Southern accent.

“Please call me Aaron.”

“And Pierce, please,” I told him. “Thank you for your email. I must tell
you that I thought that I was imagining everything.”

“You’re not because I’ve read your e-catalogue on The Comstock Pollock,”
Aaron quickly injected. “Your painting is not only genuine, but I believe
that it is one of the very best drip paintings that Pollock ever created.”

(Wait, I must interrupt. The so-called “Comstock Pollock” is the painting O’Donnell managed to wrestle away from Maitreya Kadre, who wrestled it away from a member of Gregory Comstock…or Colbrook.

Part of the legal beef between the two former business partners was a “holographic will” of Gregory H. Comstock, (aka Gregory Colbrook), the dead guy who purportedly owned the “Pollock” painting. In 2006, Maitreya Kadre filed an appeal challenging an order of the probate court that denied her second petition to have admitted to probate what she asserts is “a holographic will of decedent Gregory H. Comstock”.

The text of the writing submitted by Kadre, as a holographic will, stated in part: “In the event of my irreversible incapacitation, I, Gregory Colbrook hereby designate [appellant Kadre] the executor of my assets which are represented in whole by one painting by Jackson Pollock, . . ., given to me in 1950 by my grandfather John Adams Comstock.

I authorize [Kadre] to realize negotiable funds from the painting and to give 5% of the proceeds/value to [the administrator Alp Tolun], . . ., but only if and when I am unable to act.”

The writing was dated March 31, 2006, and has the words “Los Angeles” next to the date. It bears a signature Greg Colbrook, and it has a witness signature of one person.)

So back to the discussion between De Groft (who believes the “Comstock” Pollock is “one of the very best drip paintings” he’s ever seen) and Pierce O’Donnell.

O’Donnell speaks first.

“Umm, thank you,” I said in a low voice as I tried to process just what
Aaron was telling me. I had lived with this painting for a decade and had
spent so much time and money, battling to have it publicly recognized as
authentic and exceptional. That moment had finally come.

“You should be proud of what you have accomplished,” Aaron added. “I
would like to introduce this unknown masterpiece to the world in a way
befitting its grandeur.”

Aaron then outlined his ideas for a world premiere beginning in late
September of 2021, including massive publicity, a catalogue, and multiple
months of exhibiting it to tens of thousands of visitors. The
exhibition would be part of a larger event for launching a campaign
to celebrate the museum’s 100th anniversary in 2024.

“I have a lot of experience debuting lost art, Pierce,” Aaron mentioned.
“From Titian to Rembrandt to da Vinci. Your Pollock will captivate the
art world.”

I’m bet squeals filled the room.

Pierce O’Donnell continues in his catalogue essay, head spinning at the thought of cashing in his dodgy Pollock for millions:

The significance of a major exhibition was hardly lost on me. This
could be the elusive final validation — in lieu of a catalogue raisonné
entry and Pollock-Krasner Foundation authentication — that would
get the painting (recently appraised at $170 million) sold.

“Aaron, this is Pierce,” I opened on a call the next day. “I want to thank
you for your call and invitation.”

“I hope that you will let us do this,” Aaron stated. “I promise that we will
mount a world-class exhibition.”

“Aaron, I definitely want to partner with you and your museum,” I made
clear. “But I can’t commit to September. I have some issues to resolve first
with my partner.”

“Oh, I see,” Aaron replied, disappointment resonating in his voice.

“But I think we would be good to go in January,” I quickly added.

“That will work . . . work very fine,” Aaron told me.

“Now, I do have some other paintings that you might be interested in for
your September event.” (Here comes the Basquiat pitch!)

“Talk to me,” Aaron urged.

I told him the condensed version of the story of the Mumford
Basquiats, the efforts by Lee and me to get them authenticated and
sold, and the roadblocks that we had encountered. As I spoke, I
emailed him photos of our six paintings.

“Oh my God!” Aaron exclaimed. “These are sensational.”

“I have a website with all the research, expert reports, and key documents,”
I offered. “Let me send you the link and password.”

The next morning, Aaron called me. His voice was excited.

“Pierce, I was up most of the night devouring your website contents,” he
started. “I want to do a major exhibition showcasing your spectacular
Basquiats in September. They are gems.”

Twice in one week this man had changed my life. While I instantly
knew the significance of his museum vouching for our Basquiats —
as it was vouching for the Pollock — I was nonetheless awed and
humbled. No one knew the loneliness, heartache, and gnawing sense
of failure that had haunted my decade-long efforts to persuade the
hostile art world to embrace these paintings.

I enthusiastically accepted Aaron’s invitation. After we discussed
some of the particulars, including getting the other 19 Basquiats into
the exhibition, Aaron had a question for me.

“Pierce, Jackson Pollock and Jean-Michel Basquiat are the two greatest,
most significant artists in American history,” he stated. “How did one
person, you, manage to be so involved with both?”

“Bad luck,” I wryly replied. “Until I met you.”

(Cue the violins!)

It did not take long for the museum and me to work out the details
of a loan agreement for the six paintings. I also talked with Lee and
Rich about showcasing their 19 paintings at the same time. They
were in.
As part of his due diligence, Aaron traveled to New York to examine
the paintings. He then gave us his impressions:

“These are astounding masterpieces in one of the last times Basquiat was
painting for himself. After the year 1982, Basquiat was always painting
for someone else. The exceptional quality and depth of these raw-energy
cardboard and plywood works from the Mumford Collection are the purist
form of Basquiat, much like when he was painting in and painting on…
Brooklyn. We made a discovery never mentioned or observed and recorded
before by anyone. Basquiat used spray painting on these cardboards
from the Mumford Collection, thus tying these California pictures directly
to Brooklyn. . . . I will say once again that these works in the Mumford
Collection are masterpieces and, as of yet, there are no comparable works
like this now, or before them. I would say they are singularly unique. Let
me know how I can help to debut these masterpieces to the world.”

What bullshit! I didn’t believe it when Taryn Burns sent me this “Provenance” document in 2018 for Quan’s “Helicopter”, and I don’t believe O’Donnell’s list of “unlikely events”.

With the exception of De Groft, everyone involved in this (including “Billy”, “Lee”, and “Taryn”) is a criminal — including O’Donnell.

“Thanks to Mumford forgetting about his purchase and not paying
his storage locker fees, Billy recognizing and rescuing the paintings
from a trash dumpster, Lee putting up the money to buy them and all
his incredible detective work from finding the poem to Diego Cortez,
my stubborn pursuit of evidence and expert opinions, and, finally,
Dr. Aaron De Groft reading my e-catalogue for The Comstock
Pollock, the Mumford and Basquiat Venice Collection may have remained
lost forever.”

Oh, for Pete’s sake, Pierce.

The statute of limitations for wire fraud is 5 years.

Tick tock!