Federal prosecutors won’t try to prove a painting stolen in 2005 in Scranton is an authentic Jackson Pollock, an assistant U.S. attorney said Tuesday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney James Buchanan acknowledged that during a U.S. District Court hearing in Scranton on the status of the lawyer for theft suspect Joseph Atsus.
Buchanan’s statement marked the first time a federal official publicly acknowledged the government can’t prove the famed abstract expressionist artist created the still-missing painting, known as “Winter in Springs” or “Springs Winter.”
It also added to long-existing doubts about the painting’s origins.
Atsus, of Roaring Brook Township in Lackawanna County, was among nine people charged as part of a theft ring that operated for two decades and stole art and memorabilia from museums and other venues nationwide.
Four suspects -- Thomas Trotta and his sister, Dawn Trotta, Ralph Parry and Frank Tassiello – have pleaded guilty and await sentencing.
Senior U.S. District Judge Malachy E. Mannion set Oct. 28 as the new trial date for Atsus, his brother, Alfred Atsus, Damien Boland and Nicholas Dombek.
The other suspect, Daryl Rinker, died in April.
Artist Arthur Byron Phillips, a Scranton native who died at 81 in November 2008, told the New York Times in March 2006 his mother bought the painting for him from Pollock for $800 in 1951.
Pollock died five years later. The painting hung in the family home in Scranton for years, but after she died, Phillips loaned it to the Everhart Museum in Scranton’s Nay Aug Park for display.
Thieves stole the 40-by-32-inch canvas painting by shattering a glass door about 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 18, 2005. A silent alarm warned police, who arrived in four minutes, but found the paintings and perpetrators gone.
Phillips called the painting “Winter in Springs,” but indictments and newspaper stories after the theft refer to it as “Springs Winter,” a work by Jackson Pollock. The indictments say it was among the vintage guns, sports memorabilia and other artworks the ring stole. The indictments list no value for it but estimate values for other stolen goods.
For example, “Le Grande Passion,” a silkscreen by Andy Warhol, stolen from the Everhart at the same time, is listed among items either more than 100 years old and having a value of at least $5,000 or less than 100 years old and having a value of at least $100,000.
That's part of the definition for one of the crimes charged. The value will also matter for sentencing purposes.
A comparable Pollock painting sold at auction for $11.6 million in 2004, but the authenticity of Phillips’ purported Pollock painting has been in doubt at least since the theft.
Phillips always publicly said the painting was real and told the story of how he acquired it. He told the New York Times he never thought to have it authenticated or insured.
“Of course, now I wish that I had. But life is a lot of should-have-dones and could-have-dones,” he told The Times. “At this point, I just want my painting back.
The interview with The New York Times took place in the Krasner-Pollock House and Study Center in East Hampton, New York. The center housed a studio that Pollock and his wife, the artist Lee Krasner, shared.
A month after the theft, an Everhart Museum spokesman said he couldn’t say if the painting is real. In mid-February 2006, the museum’s insurance broker also said an art appraiser couldn’t authenticate it.
The painting never appears in compilations of Pollock’s art, though an FBI database still lists it as a Pollock and calls it “Springs Winter.”
In February 2006, the museum issued a statement saying its officials believe it was authentic and was loaned in good faith. By then, the FBI had at least some early doubts about Phillips.
In the courtroom Tuesday, Casey said Phillips informed the FBI four days after the theft that he could not prove the painting’s authenticity and that he made no insurance claim.
On Dec. 6, 2005, the FBI subpoenaed Phillips to testify before a grand jury and asked him to take a lie-detector test, Casey said.
Under questioning by Mannion, Buchanan said the agency viewed Phillips as “a subject of the investigation but not a target.” Mannion, a former federal prosecutor, said that wasn’t unusual so early in an investigation.
In August 2006, Phillips told the FBI he still hadn’t decided on taking a lie-detector test.
The FBI agent never followed up to determine definitively if Phillips would take the test, Buchanan said.
He said Phillips always presented the painting as authentic “to the world,” but acknowledged he would not be able to show that “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“If Mr. Phillips were alive, he would be a government witness,” Buchanan said.
Phillips died in November 2008. He was never charged in the case.
Though the hearing added uncertainty about the painting’s authenticity, its real purpose was to determine if attorney Patrick A. Casey could remain Joseph Atsus’ lawyer.
Buchanan contended Casey shouldn’t be Atsus’ lawyer because he once represented Phillips in the painting theft investigation.
“Mr. Casey is attempting to represent (Atsus) and the alleged victim,” Buchanan said.
Casey said he represented Phillips from Feb. 27 to Sept. 7 in 2006 during the theft investigation. He said nothing about representing Phillips affects the Atsus case.
He called Buchanan’s argument “a general claim which has not been factually supported,” Casey said.
Mannion did not immediately rule on whether Casey can remain Atsus’ lawyer.
Mannion did appoint attorney Bernard Brown as Dombek’s new lawyer after a hearing on allowing his former lawyer, attorney Ernie Preate Jr., to withdraw.
The hearing on the withdrawal was closed to the public, but Preate filed court papers saying he and Dombek couldn't agree on a defense strategy so he wanted to withdraw. Dombek concurred in a separate filing.
