DIEGO AND THE CANADIANS: It Isn’t All Poutine and Tim Hortons Coffee
“How did this guy start collecting this stuff that was considered crap and now it’s worth millions?” Eduardo Celis Rojo of Shooters Films U.S.A.; CBC News, September 12, 2017
In September 2017, Toronto was all abuzz about a “Toronto art dealer and a local designer” seeking to prove a huge cache of paintings were actually created by Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Sound familiar?
The “dealer” was Talin Maltepe, and the “designer” was Jason Halter — two Canadians now up to their necks in the Orlando Museum of Art’s “Heroes and Monsters”: Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Thaddeus Mumford, Jr. Venice Collection” fraud scandal.
That “huge cache” of paintings, later dubbed the “Smith Collection”, soon took a back seat to another group of “lost Basquiats”: the group of 25 ultimately seized from the Orlando Museum of Art on June 24, 2022, by the FBI.
On November 2, 2017, Maltepe and Halter (along with Diego Cortez, Patti Astor, Albert Diaz, Rick Prol and Carl Davis) were at a Crozier Fine Art Storage facility in New York City.
Maltepe, Halter and Cortez were there to oversee the authentication of the paintings…and for the Benjamins.
Cortez, who was identified in the June 2022 FBI affidavit as “Expert-3”, participated with Maltepe and Halter in an elaborate grifting scheme. According to contemporaneous documents and photographs provided exclusively to me by a confidential source, in his last years, Cortez was strictly “pay for play”.
According to my source, and supported by documents, during the final years of his life, Cortez was paid a five-figure appearance fee upwards of $25,000, provided “first class airfare” and was paid up to “$2,500 for each piece” authenticated. In addition to hotel and meals, Cortez would “write an additional letter for $10,000 to say that in his opinion the works are good.”
In return, all signatures were visually recorded: by photograph and video.
Talin Maltepe and Diego Cortez; “Smith Collection” authentication
“The Mumford Collection was also reviewed and purportedly authenticated by Expert-3. Investigating agents were unable to interview Expert-3 regarding this purported authentication, as Expert-3 died on or about June 20, 2021. The investigation revealed, however, that Expert-3 previously sought payment for writing a favorable report authenticating works of Basquiat.”
Cortez was “Expert-3”.
Although Maltepe’s taken a social media break, her partner Jason Halter is currently courting public exposure.
In a July 3, 2022, Instagram post, Halter is pictured at the Art Gallery of Ontario in front of his painting “Open 24 Hours”, featured in the exhibition, “I AM HERE: Home Movies And Everyday Masterpieces”.
Two paintings from Jason Halter’s so-called “Gray Matter Archive” are being exhibited in Toronto at the Art Gallery of Ontario through the middle of August 2022: one of them is “Goldtooth”, a painting sold by Talin Maltepe to Bobby Zeitler of Jupiter, Florida.
And other is “Open 24 Hours”, owned by Halter.
In addition, Halter is exhibiting painted drums purportedly created by Basquiat (above left).
Although Toronto residents Talin Maltepe and Jason Halter were once as “thick as thieves”, recent changes to her social media accounts reveal Maltepe acting more like a cockroach — running away when exposed to the light.
On June 14, 2016, Maltepe posted this painting on her personal Facebook page, boldly stating it was a Basquiat and bragging that she would “smile” when it was sold.
That painting, shown below in a February 28, 2020 post on Halter’s Instagram account, is owned by Jason Halter.
Imagine that…someone using a museum exhibition to sell a dodgy painting.
