Round 2 - Park West Gallery Litigation Update #77:

Defendants Park West Gallery and Royal Caribbean to Face Victims and FAR® in Nov. 2011 Jury Tria

It has been some time since our last update as it relates to Park West Gallery and all of the related litigation that is ongoing, but it certainly does not mean that our investigation into cruise ship art auctions has ended or that we are no longer receiving complaints from buyers and auctioneers. In fact, we are receiving more complaints than ever from cruise passengers who have purchased artwork recently and in the past from Park West Gallery. We have also been receiving intelligence on other art vendors who have replaced Park West Gallery on cruise ships. For example, we recently learned that British American Auctions has been taken over by Ira Shore, who has quite a history with Albert Scaglione. Not long ago, we reported that Ira Shore was recruiting Park West Gallery auctioneers and we have written about the relationship between the two men extensively. (See Park West Gallery and Plymouth Auctioneering Services, Ltd. - The Perfect Sham) There is much, much more information we have received recently, but at this time, we are holding this important intelligence close to our vests and sharing it only with those that need to know. Accordingly, we have been working and preparing behind the scenes, and we will report on what we have and continue to discover in the future -- if indeed we are at liberty to publicly divulge it. We appreciate the participation of individuals in the worldwide community who supply us with vital and important information that assists in our continued investigations into art fraud and crime.

At the present time, we are busy preparing for the next trial featuring Park West Gallery. So on to the latest...

A jury trial is currently scheduled in the Sharon Day case, also known as the Best, et al. v. Park West Gallery case for November of this year in Michigan, Oakland County Circuit court, and it has been a very long time coming. The defendants, Park West Gallery, Royal Caribbean, and their respective legal teams have pulled every legal trick and maneuver known to man to try to escape the inevitable -- but options are running out for the duo and in our opinion, it is a virtual certainty that short of an enormous agreed upon settlement with the victims, Park West Gallery and Royal Caribbean will most certainly face an insurmountable challenge at trial. Remember, Royal Caribbean is used to litigating in Florida -- where the law is heavily in its favor and where they bask in protections not afforded to the cruise lines in other states, like Michigan.

Yes, Royal Caribbean will be joining Park West Gallery at the defense table. As we said early on, one has to seriously wonder about the logic behind Royal Caribbean's decision to risk its reputation and brand by aligning with and appearing at trial, lock step with its jilted concessionaire/vendor, Park West Gallery, especially when you consider all of the shocking evidence and testimony that the victims and Fine Art Registry will be divulging. The old adages usually always hold true: "You are known by the company you keep" and "perception is reality". The inextricable ties between Royal Caribbean and its revenue partner, Park West Gallery, will be laid bare at trial with a great big scoop of some amazing evidence to be revealed that Royal Caribbean (and Park West Gallery) up to this point know absolutely nothing about.

As a reminder, Royal Caribbean terminated its contract with Park West Gallery a year ago after Fine Art Registry won a unanimous jury verdict in Federal Court, and after a death threat was made from the corporate offices of Royal Caribbean to this writer. So, why would Royal Caribbean want to advertise to the world its co-defendant status with Park West Gallery (considering its reputation)? We don't think they do. It would be PR suicide. Yet, we wonder about Royal Caribbean's litigation strategy. For example, is Royal Caribbean truly aligned with Park West Gallery or has Royal Caribbean (at some point over the last three years or so) threatened to sue Park West Gallery for the sale of many fraudulent and spurious Dali prints sold aboard Royal Caribbean and Celebrity ships? Will or have the two companies pointed the finger at each other -- in the ultimate blame game?

Whatever the case, it is a fact that Royal Caribbean's hands are far from clean as they have shared heavily in the profits from the sale of artwork aboard its ships and especially as it relates to the victims, Sharon Day and Julian Howard. In our interview with the Park West Gallery auctioneer (Nick Dobrota) last year, he revealed to us that he was instructed by Park West Gallery, to manufacture and/or fabricate a Park West Gallery invoice in order to make it appear as if the sale of the set of forged Dali woodcuts occurred on ship (mind you, this was months after Day and Howard had sailed with Royal Caribbean), and further reported to us that Royal Caribbean received well over $100,000 as its cut of the Park West Gallery sale -- even though Day and Howard never sailed on the ship indicated on the invoice and never attended an auction as indicated on the invoice. In fact, Day and Howard were at home in the UK on terra firma when the sale was made by salesman, Morris Shapiro from the Southfield, Michigan gallery—hundreds of miles from any sea port or cruise ship. What's more, Day and Howard were instructed by Shapiro to wire the purchase money directly to Royal Caribbean's Bank of America account in Texas, which they did.

Royal Caribbean hasn't a clue about the evidence Fine Art Registry has been keeping dry in the vault that evidences Royal Caribbean's notice and knowledge of exactly what was going on aboard its cruise ships with its darling vendor/concessionaire, Park West Gallery, though long ago, we offered to sit down with cruise line executives to show them what we had in the hope they would be concerned enough about the financial safety of its passengers to take action. But Royal Caribbean elected profits over people and so they allowed Park West Gallery to continue until our victory at trial last year. While we applauded Royal Caribbean for finally dumping Park West Gallery as a vendor on its ships; there's still a lot of explaining to do and a lot of victims still left holding worthless artwork for which they paid princely sums all with the Park West Gallery empty and false promise of the artwork being "great investments."

Our readers might recall that Park West Gallery also sued Fine Art Registry in the Sharon Day/Best case, in essence blaming Fine Art Registry for the victims suing Park West Gallery -- making it the fifth SLAPP lawsuit Park West Gallery has filed against Fine Art Registry and others associated with Fine Art Registry, and each and every time for a whopping $46 million dollars. So far, Park West Gallery has lost miserably.

The victims are very much looking forward to having their day in court in November. Fine Art Registry has been prepared and ready for three years, and considering we were wildly successful at the Federal trial last year, even in spite of having to defend with two hands tied behind our backs and under the most dire of circumstances and with Park West Gallery cheating, lying, and manipulating every single day for five and a half weeks, we still managed a unanimous jury verdict in our favor, thanks to our advocate that never slumbers and never sleeps.

This coming trial in November will be a very different trial for Park West Gallery -- the only thing we expect to remain the same will be the ultimate outcome -- a jury verdict with a massive award for the victims -- as well as another defense verdict for Fine Art Registry, and hundreds of thousands in attorneys' fees that Park West Gallery will have to pay to the victims' lawyers.

From a defense perspective it certainly seems like a very foolish roll of the dice for Park West Gallery and Royal Caribbean to allow this case to see the light of a courtroom because this time they will be the DEFENDANTS and it's not a defamation case. Park West Gallery has put the victims through so much humiliation, suffering, and mental torture -- even to the extent of suing the victims for defamation -- that Park West Gallery is sure to be rebuked, excoriated, and condemned by a jury for its vicious and vindictive treatment of the victims in this case. If the oh so brilliant Michigan legal team for Park West Gallery treats the victims like they did at the Federal court trial when they testified, it will not go well for them, just as it didn't go well for them a year ago when Fine Art Registry won a huge victory.

The victims more than earned their day in court and Fine Art Registry and our experts -- the very same experts that were at the Federal trial last year will be there to testify, save Frank Hunter. So, bring it on Park West Gallery and Royal Caribbean! We are ready and we are anxious to lay out the truth and the overwhelming evidence before another Michigan jury.

Fine Art Registry is looking forward to once again testifying to the truth -- but this time, we surely won't be bound and gagged from testifying to ALL of the truth as we were in the Federal court trial. Though they are certain to try, this time, Park West Gallery won't get away with murder by redacting documents and taking statements out of context. No, this time Park West Gallery won't be able to prevent this writer or Fine Art Registry, or the victims from testifying about things like law enforcement investigations and interviews, class action lawsuits and others, newspaper articles -- like the New York Times, The Independent, and The Arizona Republic, as well as television reports, witness intimidation, the ripping off their own artists, and all the rest of the evidence regarding the ugly truth about Park West Gallery's deceptive and unfair trade practices that we were precluded from testifying to at the last trial. This time, God willing, Royal Caribbean will be in the thick of it right along with Park West Gallery. The fact that Royal Caribbean has not insisted that Park West Gallery refund Sharon Day and Julian Howard and restore them financially is an outrage and the evidence Fine Art Registry has will bear this out.

The publicity of this upcoming trial will prove to be huge, and Fine Art Registry will make certain that everyone is well aware of it in advance. We have quite a following of people who are waiting to attend the next case against Park West Gallery. We will most certainly video blog daily about the trial, uploading to Facebook and Twitter all that is happening—just as was done in the Federal Court trial a year ago. Whatever the outcome at trial, the truth about Park West Gallery and the involvement of Royal Caribbean Cruise Line in the sale of spurious, fake, and forged artwork will be told.

The star of the trial will be the 100 crudely forged Dali woodcuts (represented at the time of sale by Morris Shapiro as "authentic," "complete" and "pristine" when it was nothing of the kind). The set was sold to Sharon Day and Julian Howard for an outrageous sum of approximately $450,000, and accompanied by a bogus appraisal signed by Albert Scaglione, valuing the set at a whopping $510,000. In addition to the expert testimony that will be offered at trial by Nicolas Descharnes and William Flynn, what follows is a preview of some of the other solid, documentary evidence we have gathered and that we will be introducing to the jury as incontrovertible evidence that Day and Howard and the other victims were scammed, evidence that cannot be denied by Park West Gallery or Royal Caribbean:

The well respected auction house, Bonhams & Butterfields (Bonhams) held a Fine Print Auction in San Francisco, California, on May 3, 2011. Bonhams was founded in 1793 and is one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. At the recent auction, Lot 63 – a full set of the Divine Comedy SIGNED BY DALI was sold for a hammer price of $134,000 (hammer price includes the Buyer's Premium of approx. 15% or so). Bonhams described the sale of the Divine Comedy set as follows:

Divine Comedy Set Bonhams Print Sale

It is important to note that prior to Bonhams offering the Lot for sale, the Divine Comedy Set was authenticated jointly by our experts, Frank Hunter of the Salvador Dali Archives in New York, and by Nicolas Descharnes of Descharnes & Descharnes in Paris. Note the original value estimate by Bonhams of $50,000 to $70,000. The hammer price of approximately $110,000 (exclusive of buyer's premium) is more than 75% less than what Sharon Day and Julian Howard paid for the Park West Gallery set of forged prints. The Bonhams set is believed to be one of the 150 sets hand signed by Dali for publisher, Jean Paul Schneider in the 1960s (and referenced in the Albert Field catalog -- The Official Catalog of the Graphic Works of Dali). Fine Art Registry offered as evidence at the Federal trial two hand signed sets that belonged to Jean Paul Schneider and his partner Reinz of Galerie Orangerie to compare to the bogus Park West Gallery signed set. The set sold at Bonhams on May 3, 2011, will be a third set to offer as proof positive that Sharon Day and her husband Julian Howard, were scammed and sold an incomplete, damaged, cobbled together, forged set of the Divine Comedy for nearly a half million dollars.

Albert Scaglione Intimidating and Bribing Our Expert Witnesses

As this trial rapidly approaches, it appears that Albert Scaglione is becoming more and more desperate. He is up to his old tricks of intimidating and bribing our expert witnesses. This is nothing new. Park West Gallery did the same thing in the Federal court case. Predictable in his foolishness, Scaglione is desolate of integrity and scruples and he stupidly underestimates the loyalty and integrity of our experts. He obviously believes that money can buy everything and everyone. There is little doubt that Scaglione has a lot to worry about as the victims' trial approaches, in addition to the many jury trials of victims that are currently in the queue -- like the Cohen, et al. v. Park West Gallery case. After all, Al Scaglione is forced to rely on the bogus, unreliable, cockeyed opinions of the Mad Hatter of the Dali world -- Bernie Ewell. As the saying goes, the chickens are now coming home to roost. Instead of manning up and facing the music at trial with Ewell, what does Scaglione do? He has his thugs, his so-called "intermediaries" lie, manipulate, intimidate, and ultimately try to bribe our expert witnesses. That's right... Scaglione knows full well that if Park West Gallery is to stand any chance at trial now or in the future, he must do everything in his power to take out our excellent and very effective experts. Is there no end to this man's diabolical tactics? He is deceitful, underhanded, pathetic, and a coward.

Will Park West Gallery dare call Ewell as a 'live' witness at the next trial? We sure hope so. And do they have a choice? It certainly will be worth the price of admission to observe Ewell on the witness stand again, especially after his oh so embarrassing testimony at the Federal trial. What the heck. What has Park West Gallery got to lose? EVERYTHING! And Scaglione knows it. Otherwise, if Scaglione was so cock fire sure of the strength of his case and if he had any faith at all in his loony expert, Ewell, (which he clearly does not) what reason would he have to try to bribe Fine Art Registry and the victims' experts?

Stay tuned for further updates. We have much, much more to share. Be sure to keep your eye on our Forum Posts as well. We will have some updates for you there in the near future.

Receive our Latest News & Updates:

— by Theresa Franks  |  May 9, 2011

Print   |  

back to top