Meyer pleads guilty to sale of works stolen from Jasper Johns’ studio

SALISBURY, Conn. — Salisbury resident James Meyer pleaded guilty last week to charges that he stole and then sold 22 works by his employer, the artist Jasper Johns. He will be sentenced in December by Judge Paul Oetken in Manhattan federal court.Meyer was arrested at his home in August 2013 and charged with one count of interstate transportation of stolen property and one count of wire fraud. He pleaded guilty to the interstate transportation charge, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, according to a press release from the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He did not plead guilty to the wire fraud charge, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. According to the FBI, the works were sold for about $6.5 million, of which $3.4 million was paid to Meyer.The court’s case summary online says that Meyer originally pleaded “not guilty” but changed his plea on Aug. 27 to “guilty;” and that as part of his sentence he will have to pay $3,992,500. The indictment notes that if he does not have the works themselves or the funds to pay the money, the court will “seek forfeiture of any other property” that Meyer owns.The 52-year-old Meyer had been a studio assistant for more than 25 years to Johns, who has owned a home and studio in Sharon since 1994. Meyer moved to the area in the mid-1990s.Johns, 84, one of the most successful and best-known artists in America, hired Meyer in 1985, shortly after he graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He was one of several assistants who worked with Johns at his property in Sharon, where the FBI said there is an office, archive and art studio.According to the indictment filed last year in the U.S. District Court Southern District of New York, Meyer “had certain administrative responsibilities including, among others, maintaining a studio file drawer containing pieces of art that were not yet completed by Johns and not authorized by Johns to be placed in the art market (the Unauthorized Works).”Investigators found evidence that between September 2006 and February 2012, Meyer “removed at least 22 individual pieces of the Unauthorized Works from the studio file drawer he was responsible for maintaining, and from elsewhere in the Johns studio, and caused those pieces to be transported from the Johns studio in Sharon to an art gallery located in Manhattan … for the purpose of selling those works in the art market without the knowledge or permission of Johns.”The name of the gallery has not been released. Meyer was accused of telling the gallery owner that the works of art had been given to him as gifts by Johns, “when in truth, and as Meyer well knew, Johns never transferred ownership of those pieces to Meyer and never gave permission for those works to leave the Johns studio,” according to the indictment. According to the indictment, Meyer “provided sworn, notarized certifications to the gallery owner and others stating, among other things, that these pieces were authentic works of Johns, and that the art had been given to him by Johns directly, that he was the rightful owner of these works, and that he had the right to sell each piece.“Meyer conditioned the sale of the Unauthorized Works on the signed agreement by the purchaser that the art would be kept private for at least eight years, during which time it would not be loaned, exhibited or resold.”The indictment says that Meyer also counterfeited a provenance for some of the pieces he sold, by making “fake pages for certain of the Unauthorized Works that appeared as if they were included in a three-ring loose-leaf ledger book maintained at the Johns studio of registered pieces of art, and that purported to show both the inventory number assigned to the work and the fact that the work had been ‘gifted to James Meyer.’”Meyer took photos of the fake pages, according to the indictment, and emailed them to the gallery owner as proof that the works were legitimate and were his to sell. The indictment also said Meyer told the gallery owner that some of the works he was selling would be included in “an upcoming catalogue raisonné (i.e. a monograph providing a comprehensive list of artworks by an artist, describing the works in a way so that they may be reliably identified by third parties) of Johns’ works. However, in truth and in fact and as Meyer well knew, as unfinished pieces, none of the Unauthorized Works would appear in any such compilation.”Sentencing is expected to take place in Manhattan on Dec. 10, according to the court summary, which also indicates that Meyer is not in prison. Meyer’s wife did not respond to an email request to her workplace seeking comment. Johns said through a spokesperson that he would not comment, nor would any other workers at the studio come forward with comments on the record.One employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said, “Jasper Johns does not nor has he ever asked any staff member to sign a disclosure statement. We are ‘tight lipped’ because we highly respect the artist for both his contribution to our cultural legacy and because he treats his staff with respect.”