Date: Fri 05-Feb-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: LIZAM

Quick Words:

attoryey-charged-Tierney

Full Text:

Entertainment Attorney Charged In Art Insurance Fraud Scam

CLEVELAND, OHIO (AP) - Paintings by Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso found in a

Cleveland-area storage locker were part of an insurance scam, according to a

federal indictment.

FBI agents found the two paintings undamaged in February 1997.

James P. Tierney, 56, a Los Angeles entertainment attorney whose clients have

included Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson and singer Gloria Estefan, was

charged January 20 with one count of aiding and abetting wire fraud, according

to the US Attorney's office in Los Angeles.

Tierney entered the Brentwood, Calif. home of his former client,

ophthalmologist Dr. Steven Cooperman, on July 11, 1992 and took the paintings,

according to the indictment. Cooperman, who was out of town at the time, gave

Tierney a house key and alarm code, according to the charge.

Cooperman is accused of bilking Home Insurance Co. and National Union Fire

Insurance Co. by reporting the paintings stolen. The insurers estimate the

maximum value of the works to be about $3.2 million, but they were sued by

Cooperman and eventually settled for $17.5 million.

A federal grand jury indicted Cooperman, 56, last year on 16 counts of

conspiracy, wire fraud, interstate transportation of stolen property and money

laundering.

Cooperman, who now lives in Fairfield, Conn., faces a March 9 trial in Los

Angeles.

FBI agents in Cleveland found the pictures - Monet's "The Customs Officer's

Cabin at Pourville," from 1882, and Picasso's "Nude Before a Mirror," painted

in 1932 - in a climate-controlled locker.

The locker was being rented at the time by the mother of a Cleveland attorney,

James Little, who was Tierney's former law partner. Little has claimed on

several occasions that he unwittingly brought the paintings to Cleveland in

late 1995 after Tierney asked him to hold them for safekeeping because he was

going through a contentious divorce.

Little's girlfriend at the time told an acquaintance that the paintings were

being stored there, and the acquaintance told the FBI.