PRO SE CAN YOU SEE: Aaron De Groft Files Counterclaim Against Orlando Museum of Art; Sacrificial Lamb, Scapegoat…Or Just A Jackass?
Know Your Client (KYC ) is a standard in the investment industry that ensures advisors can verify a client’s identity and know their client’s investment knowledge and financial profile.
The U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) requires both customers and financial institutions to comply with KYC standards to prevent illegal activity, specifically money laundering, AML, anti-money laundering, is a term for the range of measures and processes used to achieve regulatory compliance.
Aaron De Groft appears to have disregarded his responsibility as the Orlando Museum of Art’s former director to conduct thorough due diligence on the cast of characters directly involved in the museum’s “lost” Basquiat fiasco.
When William Force, described in several news reports as a “Massachusetts treasure hunter” and a man calling himself “Lee Mangin” (Force’s “financial backer”) showed up at the Museum with a trove of 25 “lost” Jean-Michel Basquiat paintings, they told De Groft and irresistible story: the duo had purchased the paintings for about $15,000 from a storage auction in 2012.
But they didn’t use their real names.
If De Groft had performed the level of due diligence required by someone in his position, he would have learned that “Force” was really Michael William Force, a shady veteran of the art world’s fringe, and “Mangin” was John Leo Mangan III — a Colorado man with multiple identities and a criminal past that includes a federal drug smuggling conviction.
On November 14, 2023, De Groft filed a countersuit, claiming he was made a “scapegoat” by the museum after the paintings were seized by the FBI.
De Groft asserts that the “25 Basquiat paintings” exhibited at the museum were not forgeries — they were the real thing.
So, how does a guy who alleges the museum illegally terminated him and “orchestrated a concert campaign” to destroy him — when he’d like you to believe he didn’t know who he was dealing with?
Hmmm.
More about this next Monday.
