Meyer sentenced for sale of works by Jasper Johns

 SALISBURY — Salisbury resident James Meyer, 53, was sentenced on April 23 to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty last September to charges that he stole and then sold 37 works by his employer, the artist Jasper Johns. 

In addition to the 18-month sentence, according to a news release from the FBI, Meyer “was also sentenced to two years of supervised release, forfeiture in the amount of $3,992,500, restitution in the amount of $13,455,719, and was ordered to pay a $100 special assessment.”

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 the FBI. 

He did not plead guilty to the wire fraud charge, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. 

According to the FBI, “During the course of the almost six-year scheme, the Gallery Owner sold 37 works of art on Meyer’s behalf for a total of approximately $10 million, of which approximately $4 million was remitted directly to Meyer.”

The court documents do not name the art gallery that facilitated the sale of the works. However, another suit was filed in federal court in May 2014 by art collector Frank Kolodny against Meyer and art dealer Fred Dorfman and Dorfman Projects LLC. According to a summary of the suit by the Center for Art Law, Kolodny’s suit claimed that Meyer and Dorfman had violated the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) by selling the works by Johns.

The suit was “voluntarily dismissed” this year on Feb. 12.

 Restitution for stolen art

The indictment of Meyer, which was unsealed last August, specifies 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 he owns.

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, who is in his 80s, is considered the most famous living American artist. 

He 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 investigation said there is an office, archive and art studio.

According to the indictment filed last year in the U.S. District Court for the 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.”

 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 indictment indicated that “at least 22 individual pieces” of art had been taken. Last week’s news release by the FBI said that Meyer had taken a total of 83 works from his employer and sold approximately half those pieces.

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.” 

 Faked provenance

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 (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.”

Johns said through a spokesperson that he would not comment. 

Meyer did not respond to an email asking him to comment.