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Buying an original work of
art, there's something
special about it

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because you know at some
point in time, that artist was present with that piece of work.

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You are in the company of that
artist's spirit, in a way.

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Many times people come
up to me and say,

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"Norval, I thank you very much
for healing me."

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What did it?
That certain painting.

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It will be a force
that will protect whatever
situation you're in.

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Norval Morrisseau, they call
him the Picasso of the North.

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Norval Morrisseau is a...
a spiritual supernova.
You know, a dynamo.

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Where Morrisseau was
trying to lift people up,

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but there were
people who have been poisoning
Morrisseau's legacy.

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I feel in this story,
I'm-- I'm just a little like
Alice in Wonderland.

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I went through the little door,

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and it's just opened up to this whole, like, "Wow."

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I just wanted to buy
a painting, really.

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Kevin Hearn all of a sudden come out of the woodwork and decided to sue.

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He's gonna be spending a
lot of money on lawyers. But
he's got no hope in hell.

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Jonathan Somner, who's his
lawyer - he's a scumbag.

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- How come?
-Yeah, he's just a sleaze ball.

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Part of me's just like, "Who
are these people," you know?

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- It's a circus.
- Yeah, it's a circus.

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Yeah this is-- this is--
this is complicated, yes.

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Jim White, he owns, uh,
more contested Morrisseaus

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than any other person
in this country,

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and, uh, I wish him the worst.

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That's when I went into the
gallery, I bought my painting.

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I bought my painting.

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Okay.

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I've never seen anything like
this in my career. Very strange.

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The value of a Morrisseau will only rise to what it was

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when all the people involved in
these cases are dead.

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Sad, but true.

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Norval Morrisseau has huge
significance - he's really a
trail-blazer.

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He's one of our most successful Indigenous artists ever.

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His significance obviously
expands globally,

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to be included in exhibitions internationally--

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--to the reports of, uh,
Marc Chagall and Picasso

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viewing his work
and commenting on it.

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He's the first
contemporary Indigenous artist

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to have had a commercial, uh,
gallery exhibition.

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It's Norval
Morrisseau, a 31-year-old
Ojibwe painter

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whose
works were publicly displayed
for the first time last week.

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What is your-- your name?

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Copper Thunderbird.

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It's, uh--

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But if you want to say it
in-- in Ojibwe,
Ozaawaabiko-binesi.

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-Ozaawaabiko-binesi.
-No.

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No. Not even close, eh?

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His work is so unusual, it
is, uh, representational

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but yet it, uh, kind of plays
with these figures that they've
never seen before.

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The art public was really
amazed with the idea

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that here is an
artist from, you know,

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so-called the-- the backwoods of Northern Ontario,

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doing something that
they could interpret as modernizing ancient traditions.

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To me, he was a very
flamboyant man.

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Every woman in the room was
attracted to Morrisseau,

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and you couldn't help but be
drawn to him because he was so
charismatic.

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His art was very much
about his culture,

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the representations of stories

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of important mythic
creatures and characters

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that make up
the Anishnaabe world.

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Well, I do see Morrisseau
as an art star.

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He was the first
First Nations artist

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to get his work out of the gift
shops and into the galleries.

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But the people who are receptive
to it, immediately they say,
"Wow.

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Far out."

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Ah. Wow, you know.

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Miskwaabik Animikii, Cooper
Thunderbird, uh-- grandfather,
uh, mishoomis.

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He's the founder,
man, he's the godfather of what
we do, man.

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First you would drive me down to
the pits of the bottom of hell
by your missionaries,

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and then later on, you'll lift
me up with medals.

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And no matter what I want...

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He really understood the force
and the power that he had, and--
and played with that.

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In the same way he was really
pushing art in new directions,

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he was pushing the way people
thought of Indigenous people in
new directions also.

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This booth is, uh, showcasing
Norval Morrisseau and
Christian Morrisseau artwork.

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We have original pieces, we have
serigraphs, regular prints,
T-shirts, for that matter.

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We're here just to show him off and, uh, hopefully attract
people to his work.

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There are all these claims

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that there are a bunch of fake
Morrisseaus floating
around out there.

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Do you believe that?

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It's hard to believe, you
know, and I-- you know, it's--

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it's not, uh-- you know, there
could be or there can't be.

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But at the bottom line, the very bottom line,

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it's always up to
the, uh, buyer, on who's gonna
buy the artwork,

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who's gonna
fork out the money for it, you
know, do they believe.

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Basically, as of right now,
that's all they are considered
to be - accusations.

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'Cause nothing has been proven
in a court of law.

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The painting I bought in
2005 from Joe McLeod

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was called
Spirit Energy of Mother Earth.

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Before I bought the painting,
I'd read in the papers and I'd
read online, "Be careful,"

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you know, "There's-- there's
fake Morrisseaus out there."

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The gallery was called Maslak
McLeod. It was in Yorkville.

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Not only did he have Morrisseau paintings,

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but he also
represented Morrisseau's sons.

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And so I thought, "Oh, okay,
this is a safe place."

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Little did I know, you know, the
spider web was around me.

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Twenty thousand was the price.

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Since 1995, I've been with
the Barenaked Ladies.

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We've sold over fifteen
million records.

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We were nominated for a couple Grammys.

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We also did the theme song for
the Big Bang Theory show.

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So twenty grand at that time
wasn't-- wasn't a huge
deal for me.

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There she is.

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I think I had it about
three or four years.

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The AGO,
the Art Gallery of Ontario,

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wanted people from the art community to curate a show,

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including works from that
person's private collection.

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I was excited to do it.

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The Spirit
Energy was one of the-- the
larger pieces in the show.

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A few days later, I got a call.

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"Kevin, I have bad news, we had
to take your painting down.

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Gerald McMaster, who was
the head curator of Canadian Art
at the time,

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believes it's a fake."

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I threw up cautionary flags and
contacted Kevin,

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who I think
started questioning are these
works actually authentic.

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This is Joe McLeod.

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And Joe said, "Kevin, if I give
you your money back,

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that will set off a series of
events that will result in the
closing of my gallery."

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And he said, "Kevin, can you
show me one court case

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where they found that a painting is fake?"

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I said, "No,
not that I know of."

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He goes, "Well,
then there's no fakes. And I'm
sorry that I can't help you."

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And then he showed me the door.

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I felt, "Okay. This guy ripped
me off, and he's probably ripped
a lot of people off."

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Everything Joe stood for
was his love of art

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and his love
of the art of Norval Morrisseau.

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He didn't look to gain
financially

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from Norval Morrisseau at all,

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he only wanted to gain, uh,
spiritually from the artwork of
Norval Morrisseau.

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Well, he did sell it.

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Yeah, Joe sold,
uh, Morrisseau's art,

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but I think it was more
important to him

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that he, um,
that he-- he--

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he had a genuine
love of Morrisseau's art.

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00:13:54,616 --> 00:13:59,577
And-- and yes, he was also
somebody who was trying to earn
a living selling art,

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00:13:59,621 --> 00:14:02,972
and what better way to do it
than to sell art that you love?

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The only way for me to
now continue my conversation
with Joe

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00:14:08,673 --> 00:14:13,243
is through legal channels.

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Joe and his lawyer
came out swinging.

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00:14:18,640 --> 00:14:22,296
Kevin Hearn is a very, uh,

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00:14:22,339 --> 00:14:26,778
well-respected and loved artist in this country,

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00:14:26,822 --> 00:14:31,435
and he deserves that. Um, I've
met him, he's a gentleman.

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They threatened that if I
couldn't prove it, they would
come after me.

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Because his case was in the
paper, because of who he is,

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there were allegations in his
pleading that linked to Joe

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as somehow being involved in a
fraud ring.

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You can look at this case
as being a simple tale about a
single painting that's fake.

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But to tell the story of
how that happened, you have to
get into a much bigger story.

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Kevin Hearn wanted to find out
the truth

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00:15:12,737 --> 00:15:15,349
about where the painting came
from, warts and all.

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Lots of crazy shit
happened here, though.

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This is where I lived a hell
every day for years.

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Before I went and met Joe McLeod, I asked him in writing,

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I said, "I really need a list of the provenance of this
painting."

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00:16:02,874 --> 00:16:08,097
Provenance traces the history of
the painting backwards
to the artist,

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00:16:08,141 --> 00:16:09,969
so you can see who owned it.

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00:16:11,622 --> 00:16:16,149
So Joe McLeod, uh, gave me a
list of provenance,

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so we have Rolf Schneider,
Robert Voss,

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and Irving Jacobs.

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00:16:25,593 --> 00:16:30,424
Rolf Schneider, an art collector, well-known in the Thunder Bay area,

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has never seen this painting,
and he's never owned it.

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Robert Voss doesn't exist.

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00:16:39,955 --> 00:16:41,652
Irving Jacobs?

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00:16:41,696 --> 00:16:44,612
He's never seen my
painting or owned it.

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00:16:45,221 --> 00:16:50,052
So now we have this provenance
that is rubbish.

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I believe Joe genuinely
believed the sources,

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00:16:56,145 --> 00:17:00,976
but there's no question that
there's controversy about where
they came from particularly,

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which is not unusual in-- in the
secondary art market

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for Picasso, for Dali, and for
Norval Morrisseau.

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00:17:09,463 --> 00:17:12,031
It's just-- it's a reality of
the marketplace.

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At some point, somewhere,
somehow, there were a grouping
of paintings.

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The timeframe when they were painted appears to be in the mid to late '70s.

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And some of that, what I'll call
species of paintings, were not
very well done.

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And the source of these
paintings are in dispute.

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After we filed our statement of claim and served it on Mr. McLeod,

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the defense, in our
view, showed a new story

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about where the painting
came from.

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00:17:47,196 --> 00:17:49,546
And the defense talked
about Randy Potter

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running the
auction that the painting had
allegedly come through.

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00:17:53,985 --> 00:17:56,684
I have fourteen.
Fifteen...

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I believe that that
painting of Kevin Hearn's

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00:17:59,252 --> 00:18:03,778
was purchased by Joe McLeod from
Potter Auctions directly.

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00:18:04,518 --> 00:18:07,260
I actually sold that painting to
Joe McLeod,

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2,500 dollars,
that was the price.

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I think I got a deal. 20,000.
What a steal.

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00:18:21,665 --> 00:18:26,496
In pursuing this litigation,
that cost to Kevin's has been
several times

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00:18:26,540 --> 00:18:29,543
the cost of purchasing the
painting in the first place.

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00:18:37,986 --> 00:18:43,165
I began to see footage
online of Randy Potter
auctioning off paintings

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00:18:43,209 --> 00:18:47,474
and I began thinking,
"Wow, how many people have
bought fake paintings?"

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00:18:47,517 --> 00:18:51,173
People that probably don't want
me to prove this,

194
00:18:51,217 --> 00:18:53,349
they don't want the
truth to come out,

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00:18:53,393 --> 00:18:57,397
because then their paintings are
only worth 300 dollars.

196
00:19:00,182 --> 00:19:05,100
Over the years, we'd evolved from selling quite a few paintings by Group of Seven

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00:19:05,144 --> 00:19:08,190
and established artists like that, and concentrating on, uh,

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00:19:08,234 --> 00:19:10,671
the best contemporary artists we
can represent.

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00:19:15,719 --> 00:19:18,374
I felt like a friend to
Norval, a real friend.

200
00:19:18,418 --> 00:19:23,945
And we became his exclusive
dealer for, uh, nineteen or so
years, until he died.

201
00:19:28,341 --> 00:19:32,997
I became aware of a
large number of paintings that
were being sold at auctions.

202
00:19:33,041 --> 00:19:38,742
They were all from the 1970s,
and paintings by Norval from the
1970s were in fact

203
00:19:38,786 --> 00:19:40,744
relatively rare in the market.

204
00:19:42,311 --> 00:19:45,096
The number of paintings that
came out became suspicious.

205
00:19:49,362 --> 00:19:52,234
Randy Potter here
with my son Jordan,

206
00:19:52,278 --> 00:19:54,802
we're gonna show off this
beautiful Norval Morrisseau.

207
00:19:56,630 --> 00:19:58,501
Okay, come around,
Jordan.

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00:20:04,072 --> 00:20:06,248
Tell me about
your businesses.

209
00:20:06,292 --> 00:20:10,296
What businesses? All my
businesses? You don't wanna know
all my businesses.

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00:20:11,601 --> 00:20:15,431
Worked at GM
for twenty years, then quit
there, became an auctioneer,

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00:20:16,389 --> 00:20:19,174
and now I just own a restaurant.

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00:20:21,002 --> 00:20:22,612
The rest is history.

213
00:20:22,656 --> 00:20:25,180
Twenty-five hundred? And we have
twenty-five hundred, right here.

214
00:20:25,224 --> 00:20:26,355
Twenty-five hundred.

215
00:20:28,139 --> 00:20:30,881
The art thing started,
basically, with the Norval
Morrisseau stuff.

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00:20:33,623 --> 00:20:37,540
Didn't know much about him, I
heard his name, and I put him
through my auction,

217
00:20:37,584 --> 00:20:40,543
and we did pretty good
with him the first-- first day,

218
00:20:40,587 --> 00:20:44,721
and then, once it started
getting decent money for the
Norval Morrisseaus,

219
00:20:44,765 --> 00:20:48,159
and sometimes really good money for the Morrisseaus,
and it would catch on,

220
00:20:48,203 --> 00:20:53,034
and so it started turning into
more of a more upper class
auction, I guess it was.

221
00:20:53,077 --> 00:20:55,950
Look at the
frigging frieze, get it closer
with the frieze.

222
00:20:55,993 --> 00:20:58,126
This thing's awesome, man.

223
00:20:59,693 --> 00:21:04,306
Tell me about how
important a part of your
business the Morrisseaus became.

224
00:21:04,350 --> 00:21:08,832
Oh, he probably became eighty
percent of my-- my revenue for
an auction.

225
00:21:14,098 --> 00:21:17,058
Every time there was an auction, maybe every week or so,

226
00:21:17,101 --> 00:21:21,018
I'd count the number of
paintings that were there and
made a note,

227
00:21:21,062 --> 00:21:23,934
and after a while, I got up to
800 paintings.

228
00:21:23,978 --> 00:21:26,937
This is too many and they don't look quite right.

229
00:21:29,026 --> 00:21:32,029
Over the course of
your auction, your career,

230
00:21:32,073 --> 00:21:33,814
how many Morrisseaus did you
sell, roughly?

231
00:21:33,857 --> 00:21:35,816
Probably 1,500 to 2,000.

232
00:21:35,859 --> 00:21:37,426
In that ballpark area.

233
00:21:38,645 --> 00:21:41,822
We went probably from making two or three hundred thousand a year

234
00:21:41,865 --> 00:21:44,390
to making, you know, one to two million dollars a year.

235
00:21:46,522 --> 00:21:48,742
It was the best thing to ever
happen to me in my life.

236
00:21:54,095 --> 00:22:00,144
We decided to really delve into
the-- into the whole problem of
authenticity, and in this case,

237
00:22:00,188 --> 00:22:02,364
of the ones from Randy Potter
Auctions.

238
00:22:02,408 --> 00:22:04,671
They did have some unique
characteristics,

239
00:22:04,714 --> 00:22:07,195
which we didn't see in Norval's
originals.

240
00:22:10,894 --> 00:22:12,461
Oh my lord.

241
00:22:12,505 --> 00:22:15,159
Many of the creatures that
were in the images,

242
00:22:15,203 --> 00:22:19,338
they were very
fiery-toothed, multi-toothed,
sharp teeth.

243
00:22:19,381 --> 00:22:20,861
Eugh.

244
00:22:22,776 --> 00:22:25,909
They're creatures eating
other creatures, stuck under
rocks underground.

245
00:22:25,953 --> 00:22:29,739
It's what Norval
called lower plane astral work.

246
00:22:29,783 --> 00:22:35,266
It looks like a-- an aquarium, a
nightmare aquarium to me.
Terrible.

247
00:22:50,064 --> 00:22:54,285
With the suspicious
paintings, sometimes even the color schemes didn't seem right.

248
00:22:54,329 --> 00:22:59,247
The colors
seemed to be not as bright.
Perhaps muddier.

249
00:23:01,380 --> 00:23:05,558
He never used a green like
that. Isn't that an awful green?

250
00:23:11,302 --> 00:23:14,871
Norval Morrisseau and
I were working together very
intensely,

251
00:23:14,915 --> 00:23:20,573
uh, from September
9th, 1979 until, uh, 1981.

252
00:23:21,791 --> 00:23:25,316
On the first day that I met
Norval Morrisseau,
he said to me,

253
00:23:25,360 --> 00:23:28,711
"Stardreamer, where have you
been? I've been looking for you
everywhere."

254
00:23:28,755 --> 00:23:31,322
And that was the
name that he gave me.

255
00:23:35,762 --> 00:23:40,462
I mixed his paints. The less white we could get into a color, the better.

256
00:23:42,725 --> 00:23:47,251
To me, I just put the
color I like. If I want to put
purple here, I put purple there,

257
00:23:47,295 --> 00:23:49,602
I want to put blue, I put blue.

258
00:23:49,645 --> 00:23:53,127
You know, I-- I just don't say
that's the color I want to put,
I just put the color under.

259
00:23:55,042 --> 00:23:58,393
But these fake
paintings were milky.

260
00:23:58,437 --> 00:24:01,527
White had been mixed in
liberally into the paint.

261
00:24:04,181 --> 00:24:08,621
Norval
would do the-- the drawing on a
bare canvas, put in the colors,

262
00:24:08,664 --> 00:24:12,320
do the lining on top, do layers
on top of those colors.

263
00:24:17,020 --> 00:24:21,895
For the most part, these guys
were doing their sketch right on
the canvas,

264
00:24:21,938 --> 00:24:25,333
doing the black lines,
then filling in the colors on
top of the black.

265
00:24:26,595 --> 00:24:31,382
They missed
everything, really, that was Morrisseau, from my perspective.

266
00:24:37,258 --> 00:24:42,263
Eight hundred? Eight hundred?
Seven fifty, eight hundred.

267
00:24:43,046 --> 00:24:46,093
For ten years, the
Morrisseau paintings were
selling very well.

268
00:24:46,572 --> 00:24:50,053
Who were some of
the galleries and collectors you
were mainly dealing with?

269
00:24:50,097 --> 00:24:54,580
Uh, Joe McLeod from Maslak
McLeod Galleries,
uh, Jim White.

270
00:24:56,843 --> 00:24:58,888
He was one of my bigger buyers.

271
00:24:58,932 --> 00:25:02,413
When did people first start
talking about fake Morrisseaus?

272
00:25:02,457 --> 00:25:08,376
That was, uh, 2000, 2001. And
all of a sudden, they're fakes.

273
00:25:08,419 --> 00:25:10,160
And really killed the market.

274
00:25:13,773 --> 00:25:15,383
Don Robinson started it.

275
00:25:17,690 --> 00:25:21,215
Well, his prices say he was sold the painting for 30,000,
and I'm selling them for five.

276
00:25:21,258 --> 00:25:24,566
Now, people are gonna come to my
auction and buy paintings

277
00:25:24,610 --> 00:25:27,482
before they're gonna go to his
place and buy retail.

278
00:25:27,526 --> 00:25:31,181
Who's gonna spend thirty grand
when you can buy six of them
at my place for thirty grand?

279
00:25:31,225 --> 00:25:33,009
- Yep!
-Thirty five.

280
00:25:33,923 --> 00:25:37,753
So Robinson goes to the National Post, gives his bullshit story.

281
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:44,151
"Oh, I've discovered this
auction house selling Norval
Morrisseau paintings,

282
00:25:44,194 --> 00:25:45,544
but I wouldn't buy there.

283
00:25:47,633 --> 00:25:51,027
Because they're, you know, only
we are the authentic one for
Norval Morrisseau.

284
00:25:51,071 --> 00:25:56,946
And the National Post does
this article with images of Jim
White's Morrisseau paintings.

285
00:26:01,995 --> 00:26:05,346
Tell me about Kinsman Robinson
and the competition.

286
00:26:05,389 --> 00:26:09,263
I'm sorry, who? This
is where this is going?

287
00:26:09,306 --> 00:26:11,004
I'm sorry, no,
I'm just...

288
00:26:11,047 --> 00:26:13,615
No. Who? That's as
far as you'll get.

289
00:26:13,659 --> 00:26:15,748
I see. You don't
want to tell me about...

290
00:26:15,791 --> 00:26:16,923
I'm sorry, what?

291
00:26:19,621 --> 00:26:21,754
Don Robinson was a
greedy, greedy man.

292
00:26:21,797 --> 00:26:23,886
What was he trying to do?

293
00:26:23,930 --> 00:26:26,541
He was trying to corner the
market. He was trying to
basically corner the market.

294
00:26:26,585 --> 00:26:27,586
The white man.

295
00:26:29,152 --> 00:26:30,676
You know, where Morrisseau
always talks about the white man

296
00:26:30,719 --> 00:26:32,634
and the white man
ripped him off.

297
00:26:32,678 --> 00:26:35,898
It was basically
one person who ripped him off
more than anything.

298
00:26:35,942 --> 00:26:37,465
And that was Don Robinson.

299
00:26:39,728 --> 00:26:41,904
It's a shame.

300
00:26:41,948 --> 00:26:45,255
Everything they say about me,
basically, is-- it was... it was
just... just not true.

301
00:26:45,952 --> 00:26:47,910
I started really getting
the sense

302
00:26:47,954 --> 00:26:52,785
that there was a real ongoing
feud with different factions.

303
00:26:56,919 --> 00:27:01,054
There is a huge cast
of characters

304
00:27:01,097 --> 00:27:07,016
who appear at the
court dates who write blogs,

305
00:27:07,060 --> 00:27:13,066
um, who will viciously attack
you online.

306
00:27:15,242 --> 00:27:17,461
When you say, "We
took them on..."

307
00:27:17,505 --> 00:27:22,031
Well, the people that, like Joe
McLeod, Joe Otavnik, um,

308
00:27:22,075 --> 00:27:27,341
Jim-- Jim White, um, the Goldis, John Goldi and Joan Goldi.

309
00:27:27,384 --> 00:27:28,385
They fought back.

310
00:27:30,387 --> 00:27:32,607
Keep your fucking
camera off me.

311
00:27:32,651 --> 00:27:33,782
Oh, sorry.

312
00:27:35,262 --> 00:27:39,048
I think they're just people who
have financial interests

313
00:27:39,092 --> 00:27:42,878
in the
authenticity of these paintings,

314
00:27:42,922 --> 00:27:48,188
that may be indirectly
implicated in these lawsuits.

315
00:27:50,669 --> 00:27:54,585
What proportion of
your business does Morrisseau
represent?

316
00:27:54,629 --> 00:27:59,242
I would say approximately a
hundred percent of my business
is Morrisseaus.

317
00:27:59,286 --> 00:28:02,593
I've dealt in approximately
189 Morrisseaus.

318
00:28:02,637 --> 00:28:04,552
But who's keeping track.

319
00:28:07,729 --> 00:28:11,211
I gave some money to help with
the lawyers and stuff like that,
yeah, we all did.

320
00:28:11,254 --> 00:28:16,390
It was just a little group of us
that used to give out money to
help the other guy.

321
00:28:16,433 --> 00:28:18,697
I guess it was only a fair
thing to do, right?

322
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:28,445
Well, the feud, what's
fascinating about it is that it
involves so many characters.

323
00:28:28,489 --> 00:28:31,361
Good, back, ugly, there are lots
of them.

324
00:28:33,755 --> 00:28:37,019
There are people
like Ritchie Sinclair

325
00:28:37,063 --> 00:28:39,979
who has brought a lot
of controversy to the table.

326
00:28:42,068 --> 00:28:44,070
What about Ritchie Sinclair?

327
00:28:44,113 --> 00:28:47,508
Can you tell
me about what he tried to do to
the-- to the market.

328
00:28:47,551 --> 00:28:48,814
No.

329
00:28:48,857 --> 00:28:50,685
You don't want to discuss that.

330
00:28:50,729 --> 00:28:52,556
There are matters
before the court.

331
00:28:55,429 --> 00:28:59,650
I identified Jim White on
morrisseau.com, specifically.

332
00:28:59,694 --> 00:29:04,220
I said, "Did you buy this fake
Morrisseau painting
from Mr. White?"

333
00:29:08,964 --> 00:29:14,840
My first impression of Ritchie
was, "Is this guy a nut, or, you
know, what's going on?"

334
00:29:14,883 --> 00:29:17,494
So, but he had come prepared,

335
00:29:17,538 --> 00:29:21,847
and he had things to show me
that were solid ideas.

336
00:29:23,109 --> 00:29:28,375
I saw some
inferior Morrisseau-esque
paintings on the internet

337
00:29:28,418 --> 00:29:30,551
that I knew weren't
done by Norval.

338
00:29:30,594 --> 00:29:34,511
A dozen or more
legitimate Canadian galleries,

339
00:29:34,555 --> 00:29:37,210
some of them top flight
galleries, were carrying them.

340
00:29:37,253 --> 00:29:42,563
A dozen or more galleries, quote
gallery-- eBay channels.

341
00:29:42,606 --> 00:29:47,263
Some people contacted me, hassled me for being quiet about it, uh,

342
00:29:47,307 --> 00:29:50,832
"Stardreamer,
the silence is deafening,
why won't you say anything?

343
00:29:50,876 --> 00:29:52,573
Why won't you stand up for your
friend?"

344
00:29:54,793 --> 00:29:58,492
Once I decided I was
gonna do something about it,
I wasn't gonna screw around.

345
00:30:01,538 --> 00:30:05,455
And then, I proceeded to upload more than a thousand images

346
00:30:05,499 --> 00:30:08,719
of fake Morrisseau paintings to morrisseau.com.

347
00:30:11,548 --> 00:30:16,075
Inferior, counterfeit Morrisseau
painting number one.

348
00:30:16,118 --> 00:30:19,252
Number two. Number
three. Number four.

349
00:30:25,562 --> 00:30:27,826
I think the man's mentally
unstable.

350
00:30:28,783 --> 00:30:33,005
Like I'm gonna set up
a website and call Picasso's
work fake?

351
00:30:33,048 --> 00:30:35,398
They're all-- they're
all fake. I mean come on.

352
00:30:35,442 --> 00:30:41,187
I-- I just thought it was a joke
and nobody would take it
seriously, and I was wrong.

353
00:30:45,931 --> 00:30:47,802
Well, it devastated the market.

354
00:30:47,846 --> 00:30:50,239
All the art dealers were saying, "Oh, Joe, you gotta do
something."

355
00:30:52,111 --> 00:30:54,591
One month after I
started putting them up,

356
00:30:54,635 --> 00:30:59,292
I was sued for seventeen million
dollars by nine plaintiffs,

357
00:30:59,335 --> 00:31:02,599
of which, uh, five of them
were... were galleries.

358
00:31:03,252 --> 00:31:06,734
And this Joe Otavnik,
even though I had the seventeen-
million-dollar lawsuit,

359
00:31:06,777 --> 00:31:07,996
he also sued me.

360
00:31:11,043 --> 00:31:15,351
My family came from
nothing, from a little country
called Slovenia,

361
00:31:15,395 --> 00:31:18,137
and we were given the privilege to live in this country

362
00:31:18,180 --> 00:31:19,834
and what else can you
ask for?

363
00:31:22,141 --> 00:31:26,232
He has no connection with the
art world, he said he was a
risk management specialist.

364
00:31:26,797 --> 00:31:31,846
But I also diversified into
generators and combined heat
and power systems.

365
00:31:31,890 --> 00:31:35,981
He claims under oath that he has
more than fifty Morrisseau
paintings.

366
00:31:36,024 --> 00:31:38,461
And here's your typical
Spirit Bear.

367
00:31:38,505 --> 00:31:43,292
Young Thunderbird,
exoskeleton style. Come on,
I'll show you some more.

368
00:31:44,641 --> 00:31:49,124
I have probably around
35 Norval Morrisseau
paintings.

369
00:31:49,168 --> 00:31:53,128
This is your typical Norval
Morrisseau style too.

370
00:31:53,172 --> 00:31:56,305
There's
the bird protecting the nest
from the evil snake.

371
00:31:56,349 --> 00:32:01,310
He gives all these paintings
away to family and friends to
be used as tax benefits.

372
00:32:01,354 --> 00:32:05,532
I just, uh, bought, it could be
a K-mark special, for all I
know.

373
00:32:06,185 --> 00:32:10,406
And this here is my
favourite one, Maurice "the
Rocket" Richard.

374
00:32:11,190 --> 00:32:15,934
He sued me for putting an image
of his painting on the internet.

375
00:32:19,415 --> 00:32:23,202
Anybody who has called my works
fake, I've taken to court.

376
00:32:23,245 --> 00:32:24,681
So how many times...

377
00:32:24,725 --> 00:32:25,944
Oh, let's see, uh.

378
00:32:26,814 --> 00:32:28,859
Ritchie Sinclair,

379
00:32:28,903 --> 00:32:32,951
Kinsman
Robinson I settled out of court,
maybe two or three others.

380
00:32:34,691 --> 00:32:39,958
And I think I sued Ritchie's
roommate, too. I believe.

381
00:32:41,655 --> 00:32:45,006
He sued my best and oldest
friend, Mr. Garth Cole.

382
00:32:45,050 --> 00:32:47,400
-And wasn't that his lawyer?
-Well--

383
00:32:47,443 --> 00:32:51,360
Then he sued my lawyer, who
represented me in federal court.

384
00:32:51,404 --> 00:32:53,841
Well, yes, well, his lawyer--

385
00:32:53,884 --> 00:32:58,063
his lawyer, uh, Zak Muscovitch,
yes. Yes.

386
00:32:58,106 --> 00:33:03,155
A lawyer by the name of Zak
Muscovitch called me and hired
me to be his lawyer.

387
00:33:03,198 --> 00:33:09,030
He was still going into court
knowingly knowing that what he
was representing was BS.

388
00:33:09,074 --> 00:33:11,380
Then he sued my lawyer's wife--

389
00:33:11,424 --> 00:33:14,731
-And Muscovitch's wife?
-I believe so, yes.

390
00:33:14,775 --> 00:33:17,430
For no legitimate purpose.

391
00:33:17,473 --> 00:33:19,780
And how did you come to
understand the law?

392
00:33:19,823 --> 00:33:22,826
Oh, it's very simple. You call
something fake, you have to
prove it's fake.

393
00:33:22,870 --> 00:33:24,611
I don't have
to prove it's real.

394
00:33:24,654 --> 00:33:28,049
And those were settled for
two dollars, ultimately.

395
00:33:28,093 --> 00:33:31,052
When you go into court,
you assume that people there
know what they're doing,

396
00:33:31,096 --> 00:33:33,185
and this judge didn't know that.

397
00:33:33,228 --> 00:33:36,188
I don't mind saying that. If you
wanna record this and have him
sue me, go ahead.

398
00:33:36,231 --> 00:33:37,580
'Cause you are wrong.

399
00:33:40,583 --> 00:33:44,065
Really, it was-- it was a
harassment campaign

400
00:33:44,109 --> 00:33:47,634
that eventually became a
character assassination
campaign.

401
00:33:49,418 --> 00:33:51,899
Anybody who thinks that
Ritchie Sinclair

402
00:33:51,942 --> 00:33:54,902
is an expert in Norval
Morrisseau is just ridiculous.

403
00:33:55,468 --> 00:33:58,471
"I was his protégé," and I'm
like, "Yeah, okay, sure,
whatever."

404
00:33:58,514 --> 00:33:59,820
I mean, how do I know?

405
00:34:04,346 --> 00:34:08,611
Ritchie Sinclair is a
wannabe Ojibwe artist,

406
00:34:08,655 --> 00:34:13,877
or Ojibwe person
- he's a white man who likes to
pretend he's an Indian.

407
00:34:13,921 --> 00:34:15,575
Are you
Indigenous?

408
00:34:15,618 --> 00:34:20,101
Um, I'm Scottish, born and
brought up in Thunder Bay,
Ontario.

409
00:34:20,145 --> 00:34:24,540
He knew Norval Morrisseau
through-- from what I've heard,

410
00:34:24,584 --> 00:34:28,979
he was Norval's lover for a
little while. I heard two weeks.

411
00:34:29,676 --> 00:34:33,549
Norval Morrisseau used to
put personal ads
in the Toronto Star,

412
00:34:33,593 --> 00:34:37,379
looking for young men -
'cause Norval was bisexual.

413
00:34:37,423 --> 00:34:40,730
Ritchie answered
one of those ads,

414
00:34:40,774 --> 00:34:44,256
and Norval and Ritchie,
you know, did their business.

415
00:34:44,299 --> 00:34:46,954
Norval and I were never lovers.
You know?

416
00:34:46,997 --> 00:34:50,262
But meanwhile, these
guys will do anything,

417
00:34:50,305 --> 00:34:53,134
so as far as they're concerned, I'm an art terrorist.

418
00:34:54,004 --> 00:34:56,529
I'm guilty of
cultural genocide.

419
00:35:03,536 --> 00:35:07,061
I've been in
court a hundred times at least
with these gentlemen,

420
00:35:07,105 --> 00:35:11,109
and, uh, it's a moment when
worlds collide, really.

421
00:35:16,766 --> 00:35:20,553
One of the issues that came up
today was that, uh, during the
morning,

422
00:35:20,596 --> 00:35:25,471
uh, Ritchie Sinclair, uh, said
that he'd been approached by
Joseph Otavnik.

423
00:35:29,823 --> 00:35:33,435
I tend to feel, on our side,
we're very calm people,

424
00:35:33,479 --> 00:35:36,046
pacifists, I'm a pacifist by
nature.

425
00:35:38,310 --> 00:35:41,313
And Otavnik made
some comment to him

426
00:35:41,356 --> 00:35:44,968
about how he was sucking
cocks or something,

427
00:35:45,012 --> 00:35:46,013
like, this is what he said.

428
00:35:48,146 --> 00:35:51,323
Twice I was walking with my
partner, right in the courtroom,

429
00:35:51,366 --> 00:35:56,066
and, uh, he followed me around till he got a moment where he could get close enough to say

430
00:35:56,110 --> 00:35:59,809
the usual things that he would
say to me, like, uh, uh,

431
00:35:59,853 --> 00:36:03,422
"You're still sucking cock, Mr.
Sinclair," for example, you
know?

432
00:36:03,465 --> 00:36:07,730
I decided not to bring that to
the attention of the court at
that point,

433
00:36:07,774 --> 00:36:10,516
but then it
happened again later on.

434
00:36:10,559 --> 00:36:12,779
"Still sucking cock,
Sinclair,"

435
00:36:12,822 --> 00:36:16,739
uh, "Ricky, you wanna go suck
some cock?" that sort of thing.

436
00:36:16,783 --> 00:36:21,657
Ugh. That's all they do, is
Ritchie, that's all Ritchie
does, is--

437
00:36:21,701 --> 00:36:24,182
is "This person
harassed me, that person
harassed me..."

438
00:36:26,706 --> 00:36:30,840
So at that point, I
had Ritchie speak to the court
about what had happened.

439
00:36:31,624 --> 00:36:35,236
-Did you tell him to go suck a...
-God, no. Why would I bother?

440
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:39,240
I mean, the fact of the matter
is, that's already been
testified to,

441
00:36:39,284 --> 00:36:42,417
that he was basically one of
Norval's boy toys.

442
00:36:42,461 --> 00:36:44,854
I mean, why
is it relevant to this case?

443
00:36:46,726 --> 00:36:51,774
Over at City Hall, he put me in
a headlock on the front steps of
criminal court.

444
00:36:51,818 --> 00:36:54,821
So this guy is, you know...

445
00:36:57,476 --> 00:37:00,653
We felt it was an important thing to bring to the court's attention,

446
00:37:00,696 --> 00:37:04,918
just to illustrate the-- the
weirdness of this landscape.

447
00:37:07,268 --> 00:37:11,185
Certainly their
motivation became very clear.

448
00:37:13,927 --> 00:37:18,279
They couldn't get rid of the
truth of the matter, so they had
to discredit me.

449
00:37:22,109 --> 00:37:24,024
Uh, here we go, here.

450
00:37:24,938 --> 00:37:27,201
How do you know this
is a real Morrisseau?

451
00:37:27,245 --> 00:37:29,769
Well, all the colors meshing
together.

452
00:37:29,812 --> 00:37:34,077
And the theme is
consistent with Christianity,
smallpox and all that.

453
00:37:37,037 --> 00:37:41,520
Was this the color scheme that
he was using in this period?

454
00:37:41,563 --> 00:37:44,610
Well, I-- I can't-- I'm-- I'm
not an expert.

455
00:37:44,653 --> 00:37:48,091
But if you just look at it, you say, "Okay, this painting just makes sense."

456
00:37:48,135 --> 00:37:50,442
That's how you can know. It's
like a cover band.

457
00:37:50,485 --> 00:37:53,749
Anybody can
play a Rolling Stones song after
it's been created.

458
00:37:53,793 --> 00:37:57,623
But before
that, who can do that? That's
the genius of Norval Morrisseau.

459
00:38:03,281 --> 00:38:09,156
The controversy lays primarily
in, they are all signed on
the back

460
00:38:09,199 --> 00:38:14,596
by Norval Morrisseau
in English, in dry black brush.

461
00:38:16,816 --> 00:38:20,080
Which is where the artist takes a brush that has paint

462
00:38:20,123 --> 00:38:23,997
that's kind of been dried and
wiped off, and they then write
on the back

463
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:26,695
with that dry brush.

464
00:38:28,784 --> 00:38:32,614
So here we have the, um,
dry brush signature.

465
00:38:34,355 --> 00:38:39,229
See, this looks weird
to me. No. No.

466
00:38:40,970 --> 00:38:44,713
So if you look at the
well-established,

467
00:38:44,757 --> 00:38:49,327
good
provenance paintings of Norval's
that are in public institutions

468
00:38:49,370 --> 00:38:51,590
that have been there since the
'70s or the '80,

469
00:38:51,633 --> 00:38:54,897
the signature
he would apply to them was a
syllabic signature.

470
00:38:56,116 --> 00:38:59,554
Which consists of eight syllabic characters on the front.

471
00:38:59,598 --> 00:39:04,820
It signifies Copper Thunderbird
and it was the way he signed his
paintings, uh, on the front.

472
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:10,783
Norval hardly ever signed the back of his paintings at all, with anything.

473
00:39:11,740 --> 00:39:13,394
Norval never did this.

474
00:39:13,438 --> 00:39:16,702
He... he did not do this black
dry brush thing.

475
00:39:17,659 --> 00:39:20,923
Oh, I see. Oh, no, no, no.

476
00:39:21,750 --> 00:39:25,275
So when you see these paintings, that is someone trying to say,

477
00:39:25,319 --> 00:39:30,324
"This is a really lousy painting
on the front, but you better
believe it's a Mor--

478
00:39:30,368 --> 00:39:34,763
'cause people don't know the
syllabics, the general person
that's gonna buy it. Right?

479
00:39:35,982 --> 00:39:40,421
Wow. It's just a fake, there's
no-- no mistaking it.

480
00:39:43,032 --> 00:39:45,557
What is a black
dry brush painting?

481
00:39:46,645 --> 00:39:48,734
Oh. I'll show you.

482
00:39:48,777 --> 00:39:50,300
This is what they mean.

483
00:39:54,217 --> 00:39:56,829
And that one there, you see how
it's dried and faded.

484
00:39:56,872 --> 00:39:59,745
Well, it's faded because
it's thirty-year-old painting,

485
00:39:59,788 --> 00:40:02,356
forty-year-old painting, which
would make sense, right?

486
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:04,924
It's a
canvas painting - makes sense.

487
00:40:05,664 --> 00:40:07,709
And then there'll be,
typically, a title...

488
00:40:07,753 --> 00:40:10,059
The Jesuit, 1977...

489
00:40:10,103 --> 00:40:14,977
Often there's a copyright
symbol, and sometimes there'll
be some little symbol

490
00:40:15,021 --> 00:40:17,458
like a
thunderbird, for example.

491
00:40:17,502 --> 00:40:19,329
And that's a little mini
thunderbird, so...

492
00:40:20,679 --> 00:40:23,943
When, uh, Joe was selling me the painting, he said,

493
00:40:23,986 --> 00:40:27,163
"When Norval found a painting

494
00:40:27,207 --> 00:40:30,428
to be special or of significant worth or value,

495
00:40:30,471 --> 00:40:33,431
he would draw this
thunderbird on the back."

496
00:40:34,736 --> 00:40:36,825
And I thought, "Wow, well,
that's cool."

497
00:40:39,001 --> 00:40:41,700
'Cause he was called the Copper Thunderbird, that was his name.

498
00:40:41,743 --> 00:40:46,444
This is a very good piece, this
is a very strong piece and this
is what people want.

499
00:40:46,487 --> 00:40:47,793
Pieces like this.

500
00:40:50,012 --> 00:40:54,452
And they say that all of
those are, uh, frauds.

501
00:40:57,759 --> 00:41:03,504
We went to almost every major
public art institution

502
00:41:03,548 --> 00:41:06,812
across Canada, so, all the major
museums

503
00:41:06,855 --> 00:41:09,728
that have Norval
Morrisseau collections.

504
00:41:10,511 --> 00:41:13,514
He never signed anything in
black dry brush in the back.

505
00:41:13,558 --> 00:41:16,822
He didn't sign it in black dry
brush, he didn't sign it in red
dry brush.

506
00:41:16,865 --> 00:41:18,345
It simply didn't happen.

507
00:41:18,388 --> 00:41:21,914
Guess how many more thunderbird
drawings we found?

508
00:41:23,002 --> 00:41:28,268
The answer is none. None more
thunderbird drawings.

509
00:41:44,545 --> 00:41:49,898
Originally, Joe McLeod
told me that the painting came
from this fellow David Voss,

510
00:41:49,942 --> 00:41:55,295
in Thunder
Bay, who had a huge collection
of Morrisseau paintings

511
00:41:55,338 --> 00:41:59,299
stored in a warehouse for years and years,

512
00:41:59,342 --> 00:42:02,302
since the '70s, and he's
just released them

513
00:42:02,345 --> 00:42:05,566
and they've come through Randy
Potter Auction house.

514
00:42:05,610 --> 00:42:08,482
His name was David Voss, he
showed up one day,

515
00:42:08,526 --> 00:42:12,399
and then we were sitting on a
picnic table eating hamburgers
and French fries.

516
00:42:23,715 --> 00:42:27,370
And he walked in and mentioned he had some art for me to sell.

517
00:42:30,112 --> 00:42:32,898
And the first to enter
my mind was, "Oh, more art."

518
00:42:32,941 --> 00:42:35,378
Because it was just, mostly
art's not worth nothing.

519
00:42:38,991 --> 00:42:41,515
So then he mentioned the word-- name Norval Morrisseau.

520
00:42:44,257 --> 00:42:46,564
I went outside with him and he
had eight of them in--

521
00:42:46,607 --> 00:42:49,523
in the trunk of his Cadillac, all rolled up, nice and pretty.

522
00:42:50,176 --> 00:42:52,395
He was happy with the prices,

523
00:42:52,439 --> 00:42:57,096
and so, uh, he started sending me down sometimes a whole bunch and sometimes a few.

524
00:42:59,664 --> 00:43:03,842
But he used to phone up and we'd
talk a little bit - he was
usually too drunk to talk.

525
00:43:03,885 --> 00:43:04,712
David.

526
00:43:06,671 --> 00:43:10,588
In case he sees this. But
he was, uh, he's a character,
put it that way.

527
00:43:13,416 --> 00:43:15,157
So you never had
to go there...

528
00:43:15,201 --> 00:43:16,724
I've never been
to Thunder Bay.

529
00:43:16,768 --> 00:43:19,074
He's invited me up a million
times, never went up.

530
00:43:19,118 --> 00:43:20,728
Never once.

531
00:43:20,772 --> 00:43:22,425
And I say, "David, get this fucking thing straightened out,

532
00:43:22,469 --> 00:43:24,427
I can start making some
fucking money again."

533
00:43:26,168 --> 00:43:29,258
Oh, yeah. But I, he just drives
me crazy.

534
00:43:29,302 --> 00:43:32,131
Fucking tequila means more to
him than anything else, right?

535
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:34,829
Ugh, I don't know.

536
00:43:34,873 --> 00:43:36,570
That's why I never went up to
visit him,

537
00:43:36,614 --> 00:43:38,616
'cause I knew it'd just be a big
fucking drunk fest.

538
00:43:38,659 --> 00:43:40,705
I'm not into
that shit anymore, man.

539
00:43:41,967 --> 00:43:45,840
Fuck. Fucking squaws all
weekend. Anyways, let's do it.

540
00:43:58,723 --> 00:44:02,074
And where did David Voss get
a thousand Morrisseaus?

541
00:44:02,117 --> 00:44:04,772
He used to fly into the
Aboriginal reserves...

542
00:44:04,816 --> 00:44:08,123
There's tons of them up in
Thunder Bay area - there was,
anyways.

543
00:44:09,864 --> 00:44:12,388
So one of the stories
that we'd heard

544
00:44:12,432 --> 00:44:16,044
was that at some
point in time, in the '70s,

545
00:44:16,088 --> 00:44:20,701
Norval was in the prison in
Kenora.

546
00:44:20,745 --> 00:44:25,445
And this prison guard, known as
Dieter Voss,

547
00:44:25,488 --> 00:44:28,840
had then acquired a bunch of Norval Morrisseau paintings.

548
00:44:28,883 --> 00:44:31,930
And that his collection had been
stored for a long time

549
00:44:31,973 --> 00:44:35,585
and eventually made its way
through the auction houses.

550
00:44:36,456 --> 00:44:41,591
And I do know that David Voss's
father was a jail guard in
Kenora.

551
00:44:41,635 --> 00:44:44,986
And a lot of the jail
guards had paintings from
Norval Morrisseau.

552
00:44:48,860 --> 00:44:52,559
The guards used to get Norval to do paintings while he was in
jail.

553
00:44:57,825 --> 00:45:01,307
And he'd paint for, you know,
five bucks, a bottle of whisky,
whatever.

554
00:45:01,350 --> 00:45:04,876
And of course, obviously, the
guards would probably take them
and sell them,

555
00:45:04,919 --> 00:45:06,094
whatever there was, right?

556
00:45:08,096 --> 00:45:11,578
So that's the source of the
paintings from Potter Auctions,
that I know of.

557
00:45:14,755 --> 00:45:17,845
We wrote to Corrections Canada

558
00:45:17,889 --> 00:45:21,457
and asked them whether in fact
there was a Voss,

559
00:45:21,501 --> 00:45:25,374
a Dieter Voss who had been, um,
a guard there,

560
00:45:25,418 --> 00:45:27,463
at any time
during those years,

561
00:45:27,507 --> 00:45:30,075
and they responded and said that
there had not.

562
00:45:34,514 --> 00:45:39,824
There were some
rumours that guards had stolen
stuff he painted in prison.

563
00:45:41,826 --> 00:45:43,610
I don't know where that
came from.

564
00:45:43,653 --> 00:45:46,961
Morrisseau would've
said that to me if, uh, if it
had happened,

565
00:45:47,005 --> 00:45:51,270
because I did see
him and-- and he did trust me at
that-- at that time.

566
00:45:51,313 --> 00:45:53,751
You know,
it's just-- it's not possible.

567
00:45:57,885 --> 00:46:01,802
Norval Morrisseau spent six
months in jail in Kenora

568
00:46:01,846 --> 00:46:07,155
when I was there, and I got the
painting material for him.

569
00:46:07,852 --> 00:46:11,246
It would've been 1970,

570
00:46:11,290 --> 00:46:14,467
around then, I, uh, I had just
gotten to Kenora.

571
00:46:16,034 --> 00:46:19,167
There was a domestic
dispute with his wife

572
00:46:19,211 --> 00:46:23,432
and he ended up going to jail
for, uh, six months.

573
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:28,960
Formerly, any Indian arrested for drunkenness spent his time here in Kenora jail.

574
00:46:31,919 --> 00:46:34,879
In Kenora, he had his own
personal cell,

575
00:46:34,922 --> 00:46:38,099
and there was a
cell for his supplies.

576
00:46:39,884 --> 00:46:42,974
He would paint and do his wash
and all that in the range.

577
00:46:43,017 --> 00:46:46,238
And he was
one of the prisoners that they
didn't lock his door,

578
00:46:46,281 --> 00:46:50,068
so during
certain hours, he could go in
and out of his, uh, cell,

579
00:46:50,111 --> 00:46:51,939
and it was, like, free range.

580
00:46:59,077 --> 00:47:01,906
Well, I'm sorry about the look,
I don't know what to say.

581
00:47:01,949 --> 00:47:05,997
If you're gay or bisexual,

582
00:47:06,040 --> 00:47:09,696
it's not a bad place to be if
you're in range in--

583
00:47:09,739 --> 00:47:14,832
in the range in
Kenora to, uh, so that kind of
stuff went on, too.

584
00:47:14,875 --> 00:47:20,272
And it was all very open, it was
very odd for me to see that, so,
um, anyway.

585
00:47:20,968 --> 00:47:24,363
That's another strange thought I
haven't had for a long time.

586
00:47:25,625 --> 00:47:28,106
He was king of the range.

587
00:47:31,936 --> 00:47:34,939
He did spectacular paintings in prison,

588
00:47:34,982 --> 00:47:38,420
he'd been sober and straight for
a long time, and those-- those
paintings

589
00:47:38,464 --> 00:47:43,469
I ended up selling
and, uh, ended up using them to
buy a house for him.

590
00:47:46,254 --> 00:47:47,865
He did about thirty.

591
00:47:49,475 --> 00:47:53,871
And I ended up selling them to a doctor in Toronto.

592
00:47:54,567 --> 00:47:59,180
-Were those all the paintings?
-Ah. Good question. Yes.

593
00:48:02,270 --> 00:48:08,015
And he could not have done more than that in that time, in the space that was available.

594
00:48:11,671 --> 00:48:16,241
Apparently, there are literally hundreds of other ones that are signed on the back.

595
00:48:17,198 --> 00:48:20,332
And there you go.
Norval Morrisseau.

596
00:48:20,985 --> 00:48:25,946
They did not come from him
at that era. I'm sure.

597
00:48:25,990 --> 00:48:27,513
How are you sure?

598
00:48:27,556 --> 00:48:31,778
I was there, I was there weekly,
and I saw what he painted.

599
00:48:31,821 --> 00:48:34,781
And it wasn't anything that was
signed on the back,

600
00:48:34,824 --> 00:48:38,480
and it wasn't anything that, uh, had English on them.

601
00:48:47,228 --> 00:48:50,579
He did sketches on this green
prison paper,

602
00:48:50,623 --> 00:48:55,541
sometimes both sides, and they
were spectacular sketches.

603
00:48:58,413 --> 00:49:00,415
His intention was to
actually paint them

604
00:49:00,459 --> 00:49:03,027
when he got out and he had
supplies and space.

605
00:49:12,166 --> 00:49:16,083
The painting that Kevin
bought did not look

606
00:49:16,127 --> 00:49:18,564
like any of those drawings that
Morrisseau had done.

607
00:49:19,565 --> 00:49:21,567
Not even close.
Nothing close.

608
00:49:25,353 --> 00:49:28,574
Morrisseau probably couldn't
care less about this.

609
00:49:28,617 --> 00:49:34,319
He probably had no interest in
whether people thought a
painting was authentic or not.

610
00:49:34,362 --> 00:49:38,410
He painted it. It
fulfilled him in some way.

611
00:49:38,453 --> 00:49:41,021
And if some of them aren't his,
he'd probably say,

612
00:49:41,065 --> 00:49:44,677
"Okay,
some of them aren't mine. Just--
some of them are.

613
00:49:44,720 --> 00:49:46,984
Some of them
aren't. It is what it is."

614
00:49:47,027 --> 00:49:50,770
I believe that that's what his
approach would've been to this
whole controversy.

615
00:49:56,167 --> 00:50:00,823
I met Norval in, uh, in
Vancouver, spring of '87.

616
00:50:05,176 --> 00:50:09,484
He was, uh, yeah, he was down and out, living-- living on the streets.

617
00:50:11,878 --> 00:50:16,578
I, I lost a bottle, too. I
don't know where I put it.
Forty ounces.

618
00:50:20,843 --> 00:50:23,716
I was quite wayward and life was
very distressing,

619
00:50:23,759 --> 00:50:27,894
and, uh, he said to me, he says,
uh, "I'm gonna sober up."

620
00:50:32,116 --> 00:50:34,988
We were very,
um, very connected,

621
00:50:35,032 --> 00:50:37,773
you know, he
considered me his-- his son,

622
00:50:37,817 --> 00:50:40,689
and I considered him my father,
my father figure.

623
00:50:46,434 --> 00:50:49,046
And I'm like, "I can do anything
you want me to do.

624
00:50:49,089 --> 00:50:51,570
Just tell me what you need done
- I will do it."

625
00:50:53,137 --> 00:50:55,617
And then I
became his manager.

626
00:51:00,535 --> 00:51:05,279
It seems like at a point, I
think it was maybe 2000, or
2002,

627
00:51:05,323 --> 00:51:08,848
the fakes started coming,
and proliferating,

628
00:51:08,891 --> 00:51:11,459
and just started popping up
here, and there.

629
00:51:13,548 --> 00:51:15,594
It was, like, getting
right in our face,

630
00:51:15,637 --> 00:51:18,814
and now we have computer and
we're able to look online.

631
00:51:19,728 --> 00:51:24,168
He's like, "I didn't paint that.
I didn't paint that. I didn't
paint that."

632
00:51:24,777 --> 00:51:27,823
And it's like, "Wait a minute,
there's something wrong."

633
00:51:27,867 --> 00:51:32,741
Like, there's a major strategy,
or a major network

634
00:51:32,785 --> 00:51:37,094
moving a whole bunch of shit
right into the marketplace.

635
00:51:41,663 --> 00:51:42,795
And then,

636
00:51:43,752 --> 00:51:45,624
"What are
you gonna do about it?

637
00:51:49,018 --> 00:51:50,803
What are
you gonna do about it, Gabe?"

638
00:51:50,846 --> 00:51:55,155
I'm like, "Okay. I know what I'll do. We'll go see lawyers."

639
00:51:55,199 --> 00:52:00,508
I'll make the arrangements. Let's go do what we need to do. And he was all for it.

640
00:52:06,906 --> 00:52:09,822
No one's ever proven to me one
Norval Morrisseau fake.

641
00:52:09,865 --> 00:52:12,868
No one can ever say Norval
Morrisseau said this.

642
00:52:12,912 --> 00:52:16,959
Wh-- When he wasn't
sick. And that's-- that's--
that's terrible.

643
00:52:20,963 --> 00:52:25,142
Norval then, through
a number of lawyers,

644
00:52:25,185 --> 00:52:29,494
signed a whole series
of sworn declarations

645
00:52:29,537 --> 00:52:32,105
identifying specific fakes

646
00:52:32,149 --> 00:52:36,065
in the specific catalogues of
different art galleries,

647
00:52:36,109 --> 00:52:39,678
including Joe McLeod's gallery, Maslak McLeod.

648
00:52:43,247 --> 00:52:49,296
"No, I did not paint these
things. They are not to be in
the marketplace.

649
00:52:49,340 --> 00:52:51,646
They are not
representative of my work."

650
00:52:54,954 --> 00:52:59,219
Morrisseau's sworn statements
were all over the place.

651
00:52:59,263 --> 00:53:04,224
And I think he signed statements
because he was asked to sign
statements.

652
00:53:04,268 --> 00:53:08,359
But if you take those actual
statements and compare them,

653
00:53:08,402 --> 00:53:12,841
there's so much contradiction
between them

654
00:53:12,885 --> 00:53:15,322
that it renders his
statements useless.

655
00:53:17,977 --> 00:53:21,110
The story that's been told many times by the other side

656
00:53:21,154 --> 00:53:27,204
is that at the time that he
signed these sworn declarations
identifying fakes,

657
00:53:27,247 --> 00:53:30,337
that he lacked mental
capacity,

658
00:53:30,381 --> 00:53:34,341
or that he was being
forced or pressured to do so

659
00:53:34,385 --> 00:53:37,779
by unscrupulous persons who were controlling him.

660
00:53:41,957 --> 00:53:43,698
So you don't think he was...

661
00:53:43,742 --> 00:53:46,005
-No.
-Mentally...

662
00:53:46,048 --> 00:53:51,228
Oh, God, no. God no. That's
probably be from 2001 and so
that he's not doing very well.

663
00:53:51,271 --> 00:53:55,275
So I wanna be clear, without
anybody fucking around with the
cameras and--

664
00:53:55,319 --> 00:53:57,190
and the voice and stuff.

665
00:53:57,234 --> 00:54:02,239
His mental capacity was
always there.

666
00:54:02,848 --> 00:54:08,201
Even though he may
not verbalize things, and the
manifestation of Parkinson's,

667
00:54:08,897 --> 00:54:13,380
it never stopped him from
thinking and being as sharp
as a pencil.

668
00:54:13,424 --> 00:54:15,600
He knew what he wanted.

669
00:54:15,643 --> 00:54:20,779
He knew what he wanted to express. Right until the end, he was completely sharp.

670
00:54:31,093 --> 00:54:33,052
What do you think? Is that good?

671
00:54:35,402 --> 00:54:38,275
The man was far beyond

672
00:54:38,318 --> 00:54:42,583
what you
and I would call normal
ability to recognize life.

673
00:54:42,627 --> 00:54:43,497
A shame.

674
00:54:46,413 --> 00:54:49,721
And I know from my
conversations with Christian
Morrisseau

675
00:54:50,374 --> 00:54:53,333
that his father was
very sick, and even in 2000.

676
00:54:53,377 --> 00:54:57,990
And he was in a--
he was in a nursing home in
Nanaimo, I know that.

677
00:55:01,907 --> 00:55:04,126
What kind of shape was
he in at that point?

678
00:55:04,170 --> 00:55:08,870
Uh, mentally he was well, full
aware of what was going
on, who was were,

679
00:55:08,914 --> 00:55:12,091
'cause soon as I walked in, his
eyes just lit up right away,

680
00:55:12,134 --> 00:55:14,398
he realized who
I was, and, uh...

681
00:55:14,441 --> 00:55:16,269
What year was this?

682
00:55:16,313 --> 00:55:20,534
Uh, that was in, uh, 2006. Yeah,
not long before he died,

683
00:55:20,578 --> 00:55:23,015
'cause
he passed away in 2007, right?

684
00:55:29,891 --> 00:55:34,113
The Norval Morrisseau
Heritage Society, NMHS,

685
00:55:34,156 --> 00:55:37,682
is a group of curators and
scholars

686
00:55:37,725 --> 00:55:41,903
who came together at Morrisseau's invitation in 2005

687
00:55:41,947 --> 00:55:46,995
to find a way to authenticate
his work,

688
00:55:47,039 --> 00:55:51,043
which Morrisseau by
then realized was being faked.

689
00:55:57,223 --> 00:56:00,835
The importance of him as an
artist is his legacy,

690
00:56:00,879 --> 00:56:06,667
and for that to be tarnished by the very poor quality works that were put out,

691
00:56:06,711 --> 00:56:10,018
basically an abomination,
you know, of-- of, uh,

692
00:56:10,062 --> 00:56:15,067
in comparison to-- to works that
he actually painted. It was a
travesty.

693
00:56:16,982 --> 00:56:21,116
Some of the fakes were
laid out on the floor, and he
was looking at them.

694
00:56:21,900 --> 00:56:24,816
And Norval was asked whether they were his paintings or not,

695
00:56:24,859 --> 00:56:29,255
and his answer was, "I've never
seen these before. They're not
my paintings."

696
00:56:29,298 --> 00:56:33,128
"This one, this one, this
one, this one are fakes."

697
00:56:35,217 --> 00:56:37,437
He was perfectly lucid.

698
00:56:37,481 --> 00:56:41,615
And shortly after that meeting,
he sent us letters,

699
00:56:41,659 --> 00:56:46,011
which he signed, commissioning
us to do the work that we had
outlined for him.

700
00:56:48,622 --> 00:56:50,624
They're trashing Norval
Morrisseau's legacy.

701
00:56:50,668 --> 00:56:53,932
I mean,
that's pretty clear. And it's
just-- and it's just for greed.

702
00:56:54,715 --> 00:57:00,025
All of us are, were and are, and
have always been, unpaid
volunteers.

703
00:57:00,068 --> 00:57:04,333
If they're trying
to trash his legacy, what are
you trying to do?

704
00:57:04,377 --> 00:57:09,426
I'm just trying to tell people,
if you have a Norval Morrisseau,
it's a real Norval Morrisseau.

705
00:57:09,469 --> 00:57:13,995
And there are no fakes out
there. And all this stuff is a
bunch of nonsense.

706
00:57:15,083 --> 00:57:17,434
I mean, Norval was a great
artist, and the real deal,
and...

707
00:57:17,477 --> 00:57:19,131
Yeah.

708
00:57:19,174 --> 00:57:21,438
-Here's a great Canadian
artist, being trashed.
-It's funny.

709
00:57:21,481 --> 00:57:26,268
People are questioning the
authenticity of his work, when
it shouldn't be an issue at all.

710
00:57:26,312 --> 00:57:27,748
-No.
-That's basically what it is.

711
00:57:27,792 --> 00:57:28,662
Yeah.

712
00:57:30,447 --> 00:57:34,015
A man named Joseph Otavnik, who was totally unknown to me,

713
00:57:34,059 --> 00:57:37,889
emailed me, emailed all other
members of the Society,

714
00:57:37,932 --> 00:57:41,980
and emailed their, uh, bosses,
complaining

715
00:57:42,023 --> 00:57:45,766
that we were defaming Morrisseau and we were, basically,

716
00:57:45,810 --> 00:57:49,291
ignorant people who
were involved in mischief.

717
00:57:50,379 --> 00:57:54,775
It was a-- a direct threat that
we could be sued for what we
were doing.

718
00:57:55,776 --> 00:57:57,778
-It's a shame.
-Yeah, it is, it is.

719
00:57:57,822 --> 00:58:01,869
We've been fighting a long
time over this. A lot of years,
a lot of money.

720
00:58:02,653 --> 00:58:04,524
In addition to that, um,

721
00:58:04,568 --> 00:58:09,442
there are other people who have,
uh, developed a blog,

722
00:58:09,486 --> 00:58:14,229
in which we are accused of being like Nazi book burners.

723
00:58:14,969 --> 00:58:17,755
Instead of burning books during
the Nazi period,

724
00:58:17,798 --> 00:58:20,888
we're burning original
Morrisseau paintings.

725
00:58:23,804 --> 00:58:28,461
And sending horrible
messages about me,

726
00:58:28,505 --> 00:58:33,031
with links to
this website, the Norval
Morrisseau Hoax blog,

727
00:58:33,074 --> 00:58:38,993
which was
just ramping up, and saying more
and more unsettling things,

728
00:58:41,213 --> 00:58:46,087
particularly considering I'm of
Lakota ancestry...

729
00:58:46,131 --> 00:58:48,525
Nothing like this had ever
happened to me before,

730
00:58:48,568 --> 00:58:51,702
I'm a kind of quiet academic in
the ivory tower...

731
00:58:58,578 --> 00:59:04,105
There is a couple by the name of John and Joan Goldi, who run a website.

732
00:59:06,281 --> 00:59:10,590
Virtually anybody
who stands up and even suggests

733
00:59:10,634 --> 00:59:12,766
that there might be a problem
with fakes

734
00:59:12,810 --> 00:59:16,988
can expect to be viciously
attacked by these people.

735
00:59:21,862 --> 00:59:26,301
Those with a vested
interest in selling what I consider to be fake Morrisseaus

736
00:59:26,345 --> 00:59:30,523
will contact any company or
organization I work with,

737
00:59:30,567 --> 00:59:35,397
and threaten them
with lawsuits, "We're contacting
all your sponsors,

738
00:59:35,441 --> 00:59:38,618
we're gonna destroy your
reputation on the internet."

739
00:59:39,967 --> 00:59:44,319
I was being accused of
being part of some sort of a
Ritchie-Robinson conspiracy,

740
00:59:44,363 --> 00:59:45,886
which of course
wasn't true at all.

741
00:59:45,930 --> 00:59:47,671
Just being called out on the
internet,

742
00:59:47,714 --> 00:59:51,631
that I am guilty of
cultural genocide against the
First Nations,

743
00:59:51,675 --> 00:59:54,939
is just like
putting a target on my back.

744
00:59:57,419 --> 01:00:02,990
Someone had thrown a brick
through the front window of the
Kinsman Robinson Gallery.

745
01:00:03,034 --> 01:00:05,558
I said, "Who did this?"

746
01:00:06,690 --> 01:00:09,649
Our videos showed a car driving
up in front and--

747
01:00:09,693 --> 01:00:11,738
and someone
getting out of it,

748
01:00:11,782 --> 01:00:16,351
but the image
was not defined enough to be
able to identify the person.

749
01:00:20,617 --> 01:00:24,533
At that time, I was under severe
stress - even my life had been
threatened -

750
01:00:24,577 --> 01:00:29,408
"We've gotta do
something about this guy. Don
Robinson, are you listening?

751
01:00:29,451 --> 01:00:35,370
What'cha gonna do
when they come for you?"
That made me feel-- mmmm.

752
01:00:38,243 --> 01:00:40,245
It's not only a mental
harassment,

753
01:00:40,288 --> 01:00:44,902
but there was also
a-- a physical danger that was
really present at that time.

754
01:00:45,729 --> 01:00:47,644
Ritchie Sinclair, that
freaking scumbag.

755
01:00:47,687 --> 01:00:48,775
Yeah.

756
01:00:51,343 --> 01:00:53,998
First the Otavnik threats

757
01:00:54,041 --> 01:00:58,611
by having people hunting me
down, "are gonna find you".

758
01:01:01,135 --> 01:01:03,747
And meanwhile, I'm, like, I'm
not even hiding.

759
01:01:03,790 --> 01:01:06,184
If I had six months to live,
I'd shoot that fucker.

760
01:01:06,227 --> 01:01:07,620
Yeah.

761
01:01:07,664 --> 01:01:09,361
I'd do! If I had six months
to live, I'd shoot him.

762
01:01:09,404 --> 01:01:12,059
-Who?
-Ritchie Sinclair. If I had
six-- oh, yeah, for sure.

763
01:01:12,103 --> 01:01:13,757
I'd do-- I'd
be doing society a favour.

764
01:01:13,800 --> 01:01:16,890
That man ruined a lot of
people's lives for no reason.

765
01:01:16,934 --> 01:01:17,848
It's funny--

766
01:01:26,247 --> 01:01:27,858
I ended up having a stroke.

767
01:01:29,990 --> 01:01:33,385
It's left me, as one of the
characteristics, completely
blind in the right eye.

768
01:01:40,914 --> 01:01:44,918
He thought we're gonna run away
and-- and just bury our heads in
the sand, but we didn't.

769
01:01:44,962 --> 01:01:46,267
We fought back.

770
01:01:50,663 --> 01:01:55,886
I realized that there was
probably around three thousand
fake paintings out there,

771
01:01:55,929 --> 01:01:59,411
and they were selling in the
range of ten thousand dollars,

772
01:01:59,454 --> 01:02:01,021
we're
talking thirty million dollars.

773
01:02:04,895 --> 01:02:09,247
This is the greatest art scam by far in all-- in all Canadian
history.

774
01:02:09,290 --> 01:02:12,685
There've always been fakes by
famous painters,

775
01:02:12,729 --> 01:02:15,601
but none of them that even begin to be on this scale.

776
01:02:16,602 --> 01:02:19,518
Three thousand fake paintings is a lot of fake paintings.

777
01:02:19,561 --> 01:02:22,216
So I'm not surprised that many,
many people

778
01:02:22,260 --> 01:02:24,436
opposed our view
that the paintings were fakes.

779
01:02:40,104 --> 01:02:43,542
Norval was involved
with many people.

780
01:02:44,238 --> 01:02:46,284
Many bad people, too, in
this life.

781
01:02:46,327 --> 01:02:50,462
Who came in from left field, and, "Oh, yo, we love your art!

782
01:02:50,505 --> 01:02:52,464
Mr. Morrisseau, we
love your art!"

783
01:02:53,247 --> 01:02:57,121
In hindsight,
later in life, what I learned -
these people were killers.

784
01:02:57,164 --> 01:02:59,253
These people are fucking
animals.

785
01:03:05,172 --> 01:03:08,567
Well, the more you dived into a pool of garbage,

786
01:03:08,610 --> 01:03:11,222
the more you get to know the
garbage within it.

787
01:03:17,141 --> 01:03:22,886
Each stone we overturned
revealed five more stones,

788
01:03:22,929 --> 01:03:28,152
and I found myself in this sort
of complex, dark story,

789
01:03:28,195 --> 01:03:30,545
which went beyond art fraud.

790
01:03:35,072 --> 01:03:38,684
I was introduced to a-- a young man named Dallas.

791
01:03:39,990 --> 01:03:44,821
Dallas was on the inner circle
of the fr-- of the fraud ring.

792
01:03:50,522 --> 01:03:52,611
How do you feel
having been part of it?

793
01:03:54,874 --> 01:03:56,528
I wish I wasn't.

794
01:03:56,571 --> 01:04:01,446
I wish, you
know, things turned out
different for me, but--

795
01:04:03,013 --> 01:04:08,496
I was dealt the hand I was
dealt, and I just gotta play it
out the best I could, I guess.

796
01:04:10,063 --> 01:04:14,676
And he worked with a man
named Gary Lamont.

797
01:04:19,203 --> 01:04:24,991
He was a white guy, pretty
big, scary, uh, yeah.

798
01:04:25,035 --> 01:04:30,518
I learned that how deeply
involved Gary Lamont was in
what was going on.

799
01:04:31,215 --> 01:04:33,260
- Gary Lamont?
-Yeah, Gary Lamont.

800
01:04:33,304 --> 01:04:36,263
-Who is he? How does he...
-Gary Lamont, I met him,

801
01:04:36,307 --> 01:04:38,918
he was selling Norval Morrisseau paintings on eBay.

802
01:04:40,920 --> 01:04:44,489
Gary Lamont was a drug dealer in
Thunder Bay here,

803
01:04:44,532 --> 01:04:49,015
he's well-known for being a
biker, a badass.

804
01:04:54,978 --> 01:04:59,634
This is where Gary used
to live with Linda.

805
01:05:01,332 --> 01:05:05,858
Gary is my-- my-- Linda's
common-law partner.

806
01:05:07,599 --> 01:05:09,601
So is-- he's your uncle?

807
01:05:10,645 --> 01:05:12,691
I don't consider him my uncle.

808
01:05:14,736 --> 01:05:17,870
I met Gary in 2001.

809
01:05:17,914 --> 01:05:23,658
Late 2001,
early 2002. At the time,
I wa-- I'd just turned sixteen.

810
01:05:25,660 --> 01:05:28,489
Yeah, this is Gary's first
house, this is where I met him.

811
01:05:30,056 --> 01:05:33,625
Yeah, this is where he was
selling his drugs out of.

812
01:05:34,495 --> 01:05:38,673
I just started buying marijuana
off of him regularly,

813
01:05:38,717 --> 01:05:40,893
and then
that's how I got to know him.

814
01:05:40,937 --> 01:05:43,330
Gary and Linda always had an--
an apartment

815
01:05:43,374 --> 01:05:47,726
attached to their-- their house,
their-- their unit.

816
01:05:50,729 --> 01:05:56,169
So me and my mom
would live on the opposite
apartment from them.

817
01:05:59,999 --> 01:06:04,612
My mom used to hang around the
Satan's Choice Clubhouse

818
01:06:04,656 --> 01:06:07,311
and that's how she met Gary,

819
01:06:07,354 --> 01:06:09,791
known him through there and
through high school.

820
01:06:09,835 --> 01:06:12,272
Oh, there was a lot of drug u--

821
01:06:13,360 --> 01:06:15,972
drug traffic in the houses.

822
01:06:20,802 --> 01:06:23,196
He sold weed,

823
01:06:23,805 --> 01:06:27,635
um, cocaine and
heroin.

824
01:06:29,986 --> 01:06:32,031
It was pretty scary
'cause you didn't know

825
01:06:32,075 --> 01:06:35,556
who was coming through the door,
at times.

826
01:06:38,342 --> 01:06:39,952
I was six.

827
01:06:41,214 --> 01:06:42,999
Yeah, my
sister was four.

828
01:06:44,870 --> 01:06:49,005
He used to touch us, pinch our
bum and boobs and stuff.

829
01:06:49,962 --> 01:06:52,878
It was very terrifying.

830
01:07:00,451 --> 01:07:04,977
Gary used to beat them up

831
01:07:05,021 --> 01:07:08,111
with baseball bats
or anything he had,

832
01:07:08,154 --> 01:07:09,764
he could get his hands on

833
01:07:12,115 --> 01:07:13,986
if you didn't do what he wanted.

834
01:07:16,032 --> 01:07:18,295
Did you ever see that happening?

835
01:07:18,338 --> 01:07:21,080
Oh, I only seen one incident
with my uncle.

836
01:07:24,736 --> 01:07:29,175
'Cause he thought my uncle stole money from Gary and Linda.

837
01:07:32,004 --> 01:07:33,658
They took a baseball bat to my uncle.

838
01:07:35,355 --> 01:07:36,965
My uncle Jack.

839
01:07:40,708 --> 01:07:46,236
He had a lot of bruises on his face and arms and stomach and everywhere.

840
01:07:47,411 --> 01:07:51,589
We seen a little bit, and then
he yelled at me and my sister to
get upstairs.

841
01:07:52,894 --> 01:07:56,376
Because they used to,
in the basement of my-- my
aunt's house,

842
01:07:56,420 --> 01:08:02,426
they used to have an arcade
games. Like Pacman.

843
01:08:05,733 --> 01:08:08,519
So we used
to go down and play Pacman.

844
01:08:19,878 --> 01:08:24,012
In the summer, he invited me out to his camp, to party.

845
01:08:25,971 --> 01:08:29,496
It was just north of the city
on, uh, Warnica Lake.

846
01:08:29,540 --> 01:08:32,020
He would only come
out a couple nights a week,

847
01:08:32,760 --> 01:08:34,545
and I'd just stay out there,
look after it.

848
01:08:34,588 --> 01:08:39,071
He stored all his drugs there,
so I just, it was like a
fortress,

849
01:08:39,115 --> 01:08:41,856
right, once you
locked the door, you couldn't
get in or out,

850
01:08:41,900 --> 01:08:45,686
there was bars on
all the windows and doors, is...

851
01:08:49,386 --> 01:08:53,825
As you can see, the bars on the
windows, those were on every
window.

852
01:08:54,565 --> 01:08:58,264
Barriers on the doors,
big steel cages for the doors,
and...

853
01:09:03,487 --> 01:09:07,055
Just sat around smoking dope and drinking all day and, you know,

854
01:09:07,099 --> 01:09:11,538
listening to music and then he
bought a computer and I--

855
01:09:11,582 --> 01:09:14,498
my family being poor, I never
had a computer growing up,

856
01:09:14,541 --> 01:09:18,850
so this was just way out there
for me, so I just loved it,
right.

857
01:09:22,462 --> 01:09:25,117
And then he was buying artwork
too, right.

858
01:09:25,161 --> 01:09:30,514
Just collecting, for show, had 'em up on his walls, bedrooms.

859
01:09:30,557 --> 01:09:32,820
That was my bedroom over there.

860
01:09:33,778 --> 01:09:36,737
I used to have a Benji
Morrisseau original

861
01:09:36,781 --> 01:09:41,002
hanging in my room out at the
camp, and all that.

862
01:09:43,353 --> 01:09:46,225
Norval was Benji's uncle.

863
01:09:48,923 --> 01:09:51,709
Benji was a very nice guy when
we first met him.

864
01:09:53,145 --> 01:09:56,192
He wasn't
doing no drugs or drinking.

865
01:09:56,235 --> 01:10:00,718
But then Gary got him into the
drugs. Really bad.

866
01:10:02,676 --> 01:10:08,552
He just ended up at the camp, he
started off painting a few
pictures of his own style,

867
01:10:08,595 --> 01:10:14,297
the Woodland art style, for
Gary, and then we're sitting
around one night,

868
01:10:14,340 --> 01:10:16,908
and then I was-- Gary
kept saying,

869
01:10:16,951 --> 01:10:19,302
"Oh, no, you can't
do that, you can't do that,"

870
01:10:19,345 --> 01:10:23,262
about the Norval's, uh, Copper
Thunderbird syllabics, right?

871
01:10:23,306 --> 01:10:26,352
And I was, like, "No fucking
way, you know how easy it is to
do that?"

872
01:10:26,396 --> 01:10:30,965
And I grabbed it,
did it. And then that must've
just - boom.

873
01:10:31,009 --> 01:10:32,663
Brainstorm in his head.

874
01:10:32,706 --> 01:10:34,795
How easy it was to do the
syllabics.

875
01:10:35,622 --> 01:10:40,671
Norval's syllabics, there's
eight, and Benji's native
syllabics,

876
01:10:40,714 --> 01:10:42,020
there's only six.

877
01:10:42,673 --> 01:10:45,676
And then I started seeing Benji

878
01:10:45,719 --> 01:10:49,506
signing Norval's signatures to
his artwork after.

879
01:10:54,641 --> 01:10:57,035
Yeah, this was the guest camp
here.

880
01:10:57,078 --> 01:11:02,083
The guest camp was also,
uh, Benji's art studio.

881
01:11:04,303 --> 01:11:07,959
That's when they
started making the fakes.

882
01:11:13,617 --> 01:11:16,794
When you go into the house,
there's a side door.

883
01:11:16,837 --> 01:11:21,712
You go up, like, three sets of
stairs, and then there's a
little office they used.

884
01:11:23,061 --> 01:11:24,628
Who would be in there?

885
01:11:25,368 --> 01:11:28,153
Either Benji or Wolf.

886
01:11:29,372 --> 01:11:31,983
One of Norval Morrisseau's brothers.

887
01:11:33,506 --> 01:11:36,335
Was the door
open or closed?

888
01:11:36,379 --> 01:11:39,904
Well, sometimes it was open and
sometimes they got locked in
there.

889
01:11:42,776 --> 01:11:47,651
Gary would lock them in
the room, so, I guess,
so they can hide in there,

890
01:11:47,694 --> 01:11:49,827
so no one knows what they're
doing.

891
01:11:51,263 --> 01:11:55,093
The door was open a
couple times, and I went by.

892
01:11:58,966 --> 01:12:02,753
Benji was in the room painting, and then singing his--

893
01:12:02,796 --> 01:12:07,932
signing the Norval Morrisseau's name on to the front of the painting.

894
01:12:09,325 --> 01:12:12,023
At first we thought he was just painting his own work.

895
01:12:12,893 --> 01:12:15,156
Then we realized what he was
doing when he started

896
01:12:15,200 --> 01:12:19,422
putting Norval Morrisseau's name on the back of the painting.

897
01:12:21,206 --> 01:12:24,905
How often would Benji
or Wolf be in there painting?

898
01:12:25,863 --> 01:12:28,344
Probably every second day.

899
01:12:28,996 --> 01:12:32,957
After that it was-- they started
painting them like crazy.

900
01:12:36,961 --> 01:12:39,311
Benji ended up being out there
more and more,

901
01:12:39,355 --> 01:12:42,140
and then he started calling the guest camp his studio,

902
01:12:44,664 --> 01:12:46,927
and Gary's steady supply of
booze,

903
01:12:46,971 --> 01:12:50,714
drugs went up there a few times,

904
01:12:50,757 --> 01:12:56,589
Benji was making backgrounds for the paintings,
and all this stuff,

905
01:12:56,633 --> 01:13:02,029
rolling around butt naked in
paint on canvas and he's all
messed up,

906
01:13:11,256 --> 01:13:13,127
and just a lot of weird shit.

907
01:13:14,955 --> 01:13:18,785
How much of his business
was art, and how much was drugs?

908
01:13:19,699 --> 01:13:23,181
Probably more than
fifty percent was the art.

909
01:13:25,226 --> 01:13:27,620
Gary never told me, it just
clicked, you know, I was like,

910
01:13:27,664 --> 01:13:29,927
"I know what the fuck's going on
now," you know.

911
01:13:29,970 --> 01:13:33,321
And he was just like, "Yeah,
well, you can't fucking tell
anybody what's going on,"

912
01:13:33,365 --> 01:13:35,933
and, you know,
shit like that.

913
01:13:36,847 --> 01:13:39,240
And did he
threaten you about it?

914
01:13:39,284 --> 01:13:41,852
No, no. It's Gary Lamont, like,

915
01:13:41,895 --> 01:13:46,509
everybody was scared of him at
the time anyway, like,
he didn't have to.

916
01:13:52,340 --> 01:13:56,519
I already knew his
reputation around the city.

917
01:13:58,129 --> 01:14:01,654
Well, he used to tell people
what he can do to people.

918
01:14:02,525 --> 01:14:07,791
Gary used to say, he's-- he's
able to get people murdered.

919
01:14:14,928 --> 01:14:18,845
That's me and
Gary. This is in 2003.

920
01:14:22,153 --> 01:14:25,373
Oh, he'd yell, he'd fucking just give you a look,

921
01:14:25,417 --> 01:14:29,247
and he-- you fucking knew to
shut up, stop whatever the fuck
you're doing,

922
01:14:29,290 --> 01:14:31,292
'cause the next thing that's
gonna be coming

923
01:14:31,336 --> 01:14:33,120
is a fucking
fist to the face.

924
01:14:33,730 --> 01:14:37,516
And he used to
wear all these gold rings, yeah.

925
01:14:40,214 --> 01:14:43,391
That's what I mean by all his
gold rings he'd wear.

926
01:14:44,654 --> 01:14:47,613
Hurt like hell getting punched
in the face by him.

927
01:14:50,616 --> 01:14:53,445
Just come out of the blue,
you'd end up fucking saying
something,

928
01:14:53,489 --> 01:14:56,753
like, you know,
just joking around,
saying something he didn't like,

929
01:14:56,796 --> 01:15:00,234
and, you know, and it was
"bssh!" You'd get, fucking,
what the fuck, you know?

930
01:15:25,738 --> 01:15:27,697
How many
paintings were being done?

931
01:15:27,740 --> 01:15:29,612
Hundreds. Hundreds.

932
01:15:30,264 --> 01:15:33,833
Hundreds, and lots of them were being painted

933
01:15:33,877 --> 01:15:37,794
at Benjamin's
house in Collins, Ontario.

934
01:15:38,751 --> 01:15:42,320
And we would go meet
Benji on the train,

935
01:15:42,363 --> 01:15:47,804
and pick up all the paintings,
and none of them had the
syllabics or were signed.

936
01:15:47,847 --> 01:15:49,022
Why not?

937
01:15:49,066 --> 01:15:51,677
'Cause Gary, for some reason,

938
01:15:51,721 --> 01:15:57,117
didn't want signatures on them
in case they got pulled over in
transport.

939
01:15:57,683 --> 01:16:00,512
He didn't want the
cops. Something like that.

940
01:16:01,295 --> 01:16:04,995
Gary
would whisk them away to the
back room with a, you know,

941
01:16:05,648 --> 01:16:07,998
brush and some black paint,

942
01:16:08,041 --> 01:16:12,742
and on the syllabics went,
in dry brush style on the back.

943
01:16:18,225 --> 01:16:20,750
Some of them had dates and that.

944
01:16:20,793 --> 01:16:23,796
Like,
Gary would say what year they
are, and everything, right,

945
01:16:23,840 --> 01:16:29,062
like, he acted like,
you know-- he had a special bond
with every single painting.

946
01:16:29,106 --> 01:16:31,717
You know, like, to me,
a lot of it all looked the same.

947
01:16:32,413 --> 01:16:37,157
So I'd end up taking out,
like, every picture out of the
roll, and it's like,

948
01:16:37,201 --> 01:16:39,290
"Okay, is
it this one?" You know?

949
01:16:40,030 --> 01:16:44,077
Tell me about where the,
uh, supplies would come from.

950
01:16:44,121 --> 01:16:46,906
We'd go to Painted
Turtle here in Thunder Bay.

951
01:16:51,084 --> 01:16:52,651
-How are you?
-How are you?

952
01:16:52,695 --> 01:16:55,219
-Good to see you.
-Just come to
see you at your store.

953
01:16:55,262 --> 01:16:56,133
Yeah.

954
01:16:58,004 --> 01:17:01,399
And I remember coming in and
getting art supplies for Benji
and Tim.

955
01:17:01,442 --> 01:17:04,097
Yeah. I remember asking Gary,

956
01:17:04,141 --> 01:17:07,623
um, what are you doing
with all this canvas? And...

957
01:17:07,666 --> 01:17:10,495
He said, "Oh, I'm buying
Christmas gifts for all the--

958
01:17:10,538 --> 01:17:12,671
the Aboriginals up north,"
and...

959
01:17:12,715 --> 01:17:15,979
Gary would actually get me or my
mom to go with him,

960
01:17:16,022 --> 01:17:21,375
and we would present our status
card so he didn't have to pay
the tax on everything, and...

961
01:17:22,159 --> 01:17:25,466
-Does Benji still come in?
-Yeah, he's
been coming in for...

962
01:17:25,510 --> 01:17:28,469
Wonder if he's doing his own
work or have you seen anything?

963
01:17:28,513 --> 01:17:30,080
I haven't seen his work.

964
01:17:30,123 --> 01:17:31,951
Well, it's a weird thing, eh.

965
01:17:31,995 --> 01:17:35,651
I've tried to find his
work online, 'cause he said he
sells online.

966
01:17:35,694 --> 01:17:38,131
I can't find anything that says
"Benjamin Morrisseau."

967
01:17:38,175 --> 01:17:39,263
-Really?
-No.

968
01:17:44,442 --> 01:17:47,401
Who are the key people
in the-- in the fraud ring?

969
01:17:48,707 --> 01:17:50,230
Gary Lamont,

970
01:17:52,319 --> 01:17:53,930
and Linda Tkatchuk,

971
01:17:54,757 --> 01:17:59,936
Benji Morrisseau,
and Wolf Morrisseau.

972
01:18:03,896 --> 01:18:06,203
Well, Gary got them to do the
paintings.

973
01:18:06,769 --> 01:18:12,165
Benji was one of the painters,
and Wolf was a painter too.

974
01:18:15,516 --> 01:18:17,736
Linda helped with the emails,

975
01:18:18,389 --> 01:18:20,826
and helping with the money and--

976
01:18:20,870 --> 01:18:24,874
and making the arrangements for the paintings to go out.

977
01:18:26,484 --> 01:18:29,269
My sister had the bank account.

978
01:18:29,313 --> 01:18:32,708
My sister got told they needed
the bank account

979
01:18:32,751 --> 01:18:35,754
to put the
money from the paintings in
there, so they can hide it,

980
01:18:35,798 --> 01:18:38,496
the money,
so they wouldn't get caught.

981
01:18:46,983 --> 01:18:48,898
And what was
the website called?

982
01:18:48,941 --> 01:18:52,249
Woodlandart.org, or .com.

983
01:18:52,902 --> 01:18:58,168
It was just, uh, Norval
Morrisseau art that Benji
painted.

984
01:19:03,260 --> 01:19:04,957
People were buying
through the website,

985
01:19:05,001 --> 01:19:09,266
and most of the customers were
out West, Calgary,

986
01:19:09,309 --> 01:19:11,442
uh, Edmonton, Vancouver.

987
01:19:13,661 --> 01:19:16,926
Dallas would help going on these trips with-- with Gary.

988
01:19:21,365 --> 01:19:25,064
And at that time, that's when
production was just--

989
01:19:25,108 --> 01:19:29,765
they're spitting them out
the Norval Morrisseau fakes.

990
01:19:30,504 --> 01:19:32,898
It was crazy, that summer,

991
01:19:32,942 --> 01:19:37,424
in 2006, 2007,

992
01:19:37,468 --> 01:19:42,734
we went to Calgary approximately twenty-six times

993
01:19:42,778 --> 01:19:47,826
in a two, three month period, selling art.

994
01:19:53,527 --> 01:19:55,138
How would you get there?

995
01:19:55,181 --> 01:19:57,227
Driving in his truck.

996
01:19:57,270 --> 01:20:01,535
Every time he bought a brand new, 2004 GMC Sierra, something, extended cab,

997
01:20:01,579 --> 01:20:03,842
and that's how we drove, me,
him, and Benji.

998
01:20:04,712 --> 01:20:07,280
And Benji came on
ninety percent of the trips,

999
01:20:07,324 --> 01:20:11,023
'cause he was a driver and
Gary-- they'd split the driving,

1000
01:20:11,067 --> 01:20:13,286
we'd drive to Calgary,
one str-- straight shot,

1001
01:20:13,330 --> 01:20:15,723
twenty-three hours,
twenty-four hours.

1002
01:20:15,767 --> 01:20:18,422
Sell the art and, you know,
sleep

1003
01:20:18,465 --> 01:20:20,728
and be gone the next
morning, drive straight back.

1004
01:20:26,734 --> 01:20:31,391
And on every trip, there was probably about thirty paintings that Gary would bring.

1005
01:20:31,957 --> 01:20:36,440
Average price was probably
around three grand per
painting.

1006
01:20:37,745 --> 01:20:41,880
Always the same
question - why--why cash,
and Gary would just say,

1007
01:20:41,924 --> 01:20:43,186
"That's the way I want it."

1008
01:20:44,230 --> 01:20:46,667
No paper trail. That's why.

1009
01:20:49,714 --> 01:20:53,196
Every trip, I got paid six
hundred dollars cash.

1010
01:20:53,239 --> 01:20:57,591
'Cause I'd be
corresponding with customers
through emails

1011
01:20:57,635 --> 01:21:02,683
and showing arts
and retrieving the paintings out
of the carton tubes,

1012
01:21:02,727 --> 01:21:07,123
and, you know, just everything,
making his coffee, it's pretty
much being his bitch.

1013
01:21:12,215 --> 01:21:16,436
Who were some of
the other buyers that you heard
Gary talking about?

1014
01:21:16,480 --> 01:21:18,917
David Voss is one
of the names, yeah.

1015
01:21:21,528 --> 01:21:23,139
And Jim White?

1016
01:21:23,182 --> 01:21:24,792
Jim White I've heard of.

1017
01:21:28,579 --> 01:21:31,887
And then we went to--

1018
01:21:33,018 --> 01:21:35,847
where was
that-- Southern Ontario,

1019
01:21:35,891 --> 01:21:39,677
to Randy Potter Auction House.

1020
01:21:43,333 --> 01:21:45,596
And we just
stopped in there, um,

1021
01:21:48,077 --> 01:21:50,949
Gary went inside the auction
house and me and Benji sat in
the truck in the parking lot.

1022
01:21:56,650 --> 01:21:58,391
A couple hours later,
Gary came out

1023
01:21:58,435 --> 01:22:01,917
and we took off to Niagara
Falls to go see his niece,
Tanya.

1024
01:22:03,048 --> 01:22:06,399
That one is actually the
same day, later on that evening.

1025
01:22:08,358 --> 01:22:11,839
Gary Lamont,
I met him on eBay.

1026
01:22:11,883 --> 01:22:13,711
Did you ever buy from him?

1027
01:22:13,754 --> 01:22:15,582
No. Never bought a
painting from Gary Lamont.

1028
01:22:15,626 --> 01:22:18,934
Fourteen hundred, fifteen
hundred? I have fourteen hundred
over here.

1029
01:22:18,977 --> 01:22:22,285
How important a client
was for Randy Potter Auction?

1030
01:22:22,328 --> 01:22:25,766
Very, because of
the amounts they bought.

1031
01:22:25,810 --> 01:22:28,247
Would you go to them,
or would they come to you?

1032
01:22:28,291 --> 01:22:32,077
They came to him. They came to
hi-- they actually flew into
Thunder Bay

1033
01:22:32,121 --> 01:22:36,386
from, uh, down Toronto area just
for that one sale.

1034
01:22:36,429 --> 01:22:42,348
They rented a van,
there was three of them that
came, a girl and two guys.

1035
01:22:42,392 --> 01:22:45,438
They ended up buying, I think,

1036
01:22:45,482 --> 01:22:49,312
like, thirty pieces for, like,
a hundred and twenty--

1037
01:22:50,052 --> 01:22:53,838
I can't remember,
a hundred and twenty something
thousand dollars, cash.

1038
01:22:59,061 --> 01:23:00,976
What was
your role then, after?

1039
01:23:01,019 --> 01:23:03,979
Just to count the money
with his wife, Linda.

1040
01:23:04,022 --> 01:23:07,504
I didn't know,
I was just counting thousand,
thousand, thousand, thousand,

1041
01:23:07,547 --> 01:23:10,855
that's what I was told at the
end - I was, like, "Well,
how much fucking is here?"

1042
01:23:11,812 --> 01:23:13,379
And, "Hundred and twenty-six."

1043
01:23:15,251 --> 01:23:17,383
A lot of things
were going through my fucking
head at that time, man,

1044
01:23:17,427 --> 01:23:21,909
they just, you know, fuck,
grabbing a bat, fucking doing
them both in, you know.

1045
01:23:22,606 --> 01:23:24,782
Especially I was a
young kid, you know.

1046
01:23:25,870 --> 01:23:31,484
I'd never seen that kind of
money in my life, I still
haven't, since. That's, yeah.

1047
01:23:37,142 --> 01:23:40,450
And what was your sense
of-- of how Gary would pay?

1048
01:23:40,493 --> 01:23:43,322
Well,
Gary would pay Benji and Wolf,

1049
01:23:43,366 --> 01:23:47,848
sometimes in drugs and sometimes
money, depending what they asked
for.

1050
01:23:48,458 --> 01:23:53,158
There was an incident
with, uh, Benjamin, and, uh,
they had a disagreement.

1051
01:23:53,202 --> 01:23:57,989
I guess
Gary wasn't paying him,
and then Benji told him,

1052
01:23:58,033 --> 01:24:01,036
flat out, "When the money stops,
the brush stops."

1053
01:24:01,949 --> 01:24:06,041
And then they had a falling out,
Benji wasn't in the picture for
a couple months,

1054
01:24:06,084 --> 01:24:09,261
and then that's when Tim Tait
came into the picture,

1055
01:24:09,305 --> 01:24:14,614
and started doing the fraudulent art at his house on York Street in Thunder Bay here.

1056
01:24:18,401 --> 01:24:21,752
Gary Lamont put Norval
Morrisseau's name on my
paintings.

1057
01:24:25,886 --> 01:24:31,153
And it was the same
deal, uh, Gary would go inside
and check on, you know,

1058
01:24:31,196 --> 01:24:34,504
how progress was being made,
and how it's looking and
everything,

1059
01:24:34,547 --> 01:24:37,985
a couple of times a week he'd go
there, tell him, you know,

1060
01:24:38,029 --> 01:24:40,945
"Okay, well,
this has got to go this way," or
whatever, you know, and...

1061
01:24:45,645 --> 01:24:48,083
I wonder why he's asking
me to do all this, you know,

1062
01:24:49,997 --> 01:24:52,087
like-- he told me to paint this,
paint that...

1063
01:24:55,394 --> 01:24:56,569
I did.

1064
01:24:57,222 --> 01:24:59,094
Yeah. To get my fix.

1065
01:25:06,884 --> 01:25:09,365
Ah, man,
I was in bad shape those days.

1066
01:25:10,148 --> 01:25:13,456
That's why I lost my wife and my mortgage and everything.

1067
01:25:13,499 --> 01:25:14,326
Everything was gone.

1068
01:25:15,284 --> 01:25:17,155
I got into the drugs.

1069
01:25:19,549 --> 01:25:21,986
Crack, coke, uh,

1070
01:25:22,029 --> 01:25:26,817
OxyContin, Percocet, everything.
Everything that was around.

1071
01:25:30,690 --> 01:25:33,302
Tell me about how
you first became aware

1072
01:25:33,345 --> 01:25:36,131
that paintings you had done

1073
01:25:36,174 --> 01:25:39,525
were
being passed off as Norval
Morrisseau's work.

1074
01:25:40,526 --> 01:25:43,790
After the fiftieth
painting, I think, I started
realized, started thinking,

1075
01:25:43,834 --> 01:25:45,357
"What does he do with these
paintings."

1076
01:25:47,968 --> 01:25:52,234
Gary Lamont bought a house right during that time.

1077
01:25:53,713 --> 01:25:55,889
Made me think, like, "Where is
he getting money from?"

1078
01:25:59,632 --> 01:26:01,721
Holy smokes,
I remember those.

1079
01:26:02,983 --> 01:26:05,638
See, that's mine right there,
too, I always see that one.

1080
01:26:09,729 --> 01:26:11,688
How could
they think this is Norval's?

1081
01:26:11,731 --> 01:26:14,908
It's not Norval's style,
it's just-- you can tell it's my
style in a way.

1082
01:26:15,518 --> 01:26:18,564
That's the one
that's on the computer,
I always look at.

1083
01:26:20,479 --> 01:26:22,612
That's not Norval Morrisseau's,
that's mine.

1084
01:26:23,917 --> 01:26:25,180
The signature?

1085
01:26:26,355 --> 01:26:28,008
I didn't do
those signatures at all.

1086
01:26:29,227 --> 01:26:32,230
This is one of the early
ones I did, for Gary.

1087
01:26:33,666 --> 01:26:36,191
I thought-- I thought
it was gonna be, like,
my work.

1088
01:26:37,279 --> 01:26:41,979
This one, I didn't sign. But
he-- I guess he did that.

1089
01:26:43,023 --> 01:26:46,331
Ozaawaabiko-binesi. Copper
Thunderbird.

1090
01:26:47,158 --> 01:26:48,420
Norval Morrisseau.

1091
01:26:50,205 --> 01:26:52,511
Huh. I think Gary's the one that
did that one himself,
you know?

1092
01:26:53,425 --> 01:26:56,341
You know what,
if I had a chance to beat the
shit out of him, excuse me--

1093
01:26:56,385 --> 01:26:57,908
beat the hell out of him,
I would.

1094
01:26:58,604 --> 01:26:59,431
You know what I mean?

1095
01:27:00,867 --> 01:27:03,130
That's the kind of anger I have
in me right now.

1096
01:27:08,048 --> 01:27:13,184
And then Gary and
Benji, they're back in good
graces again

1097
01:27:13,228 --> 01:27:14,751
with each other.

1098
01:27:14,794 --> 01:27:17,797
I guess Gary paid them off
whatever money he owed Benji.

1099
01:27:25,152 --> 01:27:28,286
There are people who say they
were part of a fraud ring,

1100
01:27:28,330 --> 01:27:32,029
who have been saying that Gary
Lamont was selling

1101
01:27:32,072 --> 01:27:34,510
these paintings as Norval
Morrisseau paintings.

1102
01:27:34,553 --> 01:27:39,297
I've heard such stories.
But I have no, uh,

1103
01:27:42,082 --> 01:27:43,780
direction towards that.

1104
01:27:44,433 --> 01:27:48,263
Let me just ask you directly,
I mean, did-- did you ever
paint...

1105
01:27:48,306 --> 01:27:52,049
No. Not ever. Not ever.

1106
01:27:52,092 --> 01:27:57,054
-You never painted...
-I paint Woodlands Art,
okay.

1107
01:27:57,097 --> 01:28:00,927
For me to-- to, uh, uh,

1108
01:28:00,971 --> 01:28:03,843
sign, uh, shaman's name

1109
01:28:05,323 --> 01:28:09,414
would be such a
bad omen on my spirit

1110
01:28:10,067 --> 01:28:12,199
that it
would probably stop me.

1111
01:28:12,243 --> 01:28:14,201
I haven't attempted this.

1112
01:28:14,245 --> 01:28:19,555
Because I already know, on hand,
I wouldn't be able to do this
thing. Okay?

1113
01:28:19,598 --> 01:28:23,080
So I'm here today to set this
record straight.

1114
01:28:23,123 --> 01:28:26,388
With you, my good man,
and the rest of the art
community,

1115
01:28:26,431 --> 01:28:29,826
that I have never
forged my uncle's work.

1116
01:28:34,483 --> 01:28:38,530
Funny thing about this picture
is it's Benji who's taking it.

1117
01:28:48,061 --> 01:28:51,630
Norval was a great
storyteller and he always told
me this story.

1118
01:28:52,370 --> 01:28:56,505
He told me many times.
Kind of drummed it into me.

1119
01:28:58,333 --> 01:29:03,163
That money was like a river and
it flows by your back door.

1120
01:29:05,601 --> 01:29:09,039
And you
can go to the bank of the river

1121
01:29:09,082 --> 01:29:11,520
and you can dip in and get what
you need,

1122
01:29:12,869 --> 01:29:15,480
or you can wade into
the river and drown.

1123
01:29:22,008 --> 01:29:25,229
Norval Morrisseau was around
lots when I was a kid.

1124
01:29:27,013 --> 01:29:31,496
'Cause Gary and Linda used to
help him out with-- with
groceries and rent.

1125
01:29:34,238 --> 01:29:36,371
And some of his bills that
he had.

1126
01:29:37,589 --> 01:29:40,244
Gary said, well,
said that they were close.

1127
01:29:41,637 --> 01:29:45,858
Gary
said the paintings were coming
from when he was helping him.

1128
01:29:45,902 --> 01:29:48,644
So he was getting that in
exchange.

1129
01:29:56,129 --> 01:29:59,742
Back in the, uh, late
'80s, early '90s,

1130
01:30:00,525 --> 01:30:02,527
Norval unfortunately

1131
01:30:03,093 --> 01:30:06,662
was majorly
into substance abuse.

1132
01:30:07,402 --> 01:30:09,099
He was living in Thunder Bay,

1133
01:30:09,882 --> 01:30:13,712
and he hooked up
with this fella that, um,

1134
01:30:13,756 --> 01:30:15,627
for one reason or another,

1135
01:30:15,671 --> 01:30:18,804
started making these fake
paintings.

1136
01:30:21,372 --> 01:30:24,854
Lamont was the son of a very
close friend of Norval's.

1137
01:30:25,681 --> 01:30:30,555
And then as Lamont got-- grew older, he started hanging around Norval.

1138
01:30:30,599 --> 01:30:35,908
And then, I think, Norval's
close friend, Lamont's father,

1139
01:30:35,952 --> 01:30:38,824
asked him to watch out for his
son, take care of him.

1140
01:30:41,261 --> 01:30:47,093
So I think Norval felt like he
was gonna try and help this
young man.

1141
01:30:47,137 --> 01:30:49,922
But this young man is
way beyond help.

1142
01:30:51,446 --> 01:30:54,753
I think Norval
was involved in, not only Gary,

1143
01:30:54,797 --> 01:30:59,192
but obviously Gary's chaos or
whatever that he was creating
brought into his life.

1144
01:30:59,236 --> 01:31:02,413
And it would be, like,
almost like, "Okay,

1145
01:31:02,457 --> 01:31:05,460
I'm willing to make a deal with
the devil and I won't get
burned."

1146
01:31:05,503 --> 01:31:08,419
It's like, "You're
gonna get fucking burned."

1147
01:31:15,121 --> 01:31:17,428
You know, I've always
told other people this,

1148
01:31:17,472 --> 01:31:21,171
and some of them don't like me
to say it, but it's the truth,

1149
01:31:22,041 --> 01:31:24,479
is I believe that Norval was
complicit.

1150
01:31:27,003 --> 01:31:30,528
In the fact that he didn't like
people to not do well.

1151
01:31:30,572 --> 01:31:32,487
He wanted everybody
to do well.

1152
01:31:33,183 --> 01:31:35,968
And he-- he's seeing
someone,

1153
01:31:37,448 --> 01:31:39,363
you know,
doing one of his paintings,

1154
01:31:39,406 --> 01:31:41,713
and getting some money for it,
and they did better.

1155
01:31:42,409 --> 01:31:43,715
And he saw it like that.

1156
01:31:43,759 --> 01:31:47,719
And, um, you know,
it didn't bother him, right?

1157
01:31:48,677 --> 01:31:49,634
At the time.

1158
01:31:50,635 --> 01:31:52,245
In the very beginning,

1159
01:31:52,942 --> 01:31:55,118
he knew that Gary Lamont

1160
01:31:55,901 --> 01:32:00,297
was having fake
paintings made. He knew that.

1161
01:32:00,340 --> 01:32:01,516
How do you know?

1162
01:32:02,691 --> 01:32:04,693
Because
Norval talked about it.

1163
01:32:10,612 --> 01:32:13,571
Many times people come
up to me and say, "Norval,

1164
01:32:13,615 --> 01:32:15,878
I thank you very much for
healing me.

1165
01:32:15,921 --> 01:32:18,402
I thank you very
much for helping me.

1166
01:32:18,445 --> 01:32:20,447
I thank you
very much for doing this."

1167
01:32:20,491 --> 01:32:22,449
I have never seen those people.

1168
01:32:23,320 --> 01:32:24,234
What did it?

1169
01:32:24,930 --> 01:32:26,410
That certain painting.

1170
01:32:28,151 --> 01:32:32,721
It will be a force
that will protect whatever
situation you're in.

1171
01:32:36,376 --> 01:32:38,335
Norval called him "the
dope dealer."

1172
01:32:38,901 --> 01:32:40,990
I never once heard him
say his name.

1173
01:32:41,556 --> 01:32:45,385
But he'd say, "Oh,
the dope dealer did this,
and the dope dealer did that."

1174
01:32:45,429 --> 01:32:50,173
It was actually years later that
I figured out who the dope
dealer was.

1175
01:32:52,305 --> 01:32:55,178
Now, my suggestion about this Gary Lamont thing is,

1176
01:32:55,874 --> 01:32:59,182
he saw a wonderful business
opportunity.

1177
01:32:59,704 --> 01:33:02,794
With Morrisseau's paintings,
he could convert drug money

1178
01:33:03,447 --> 01:33:06,755
into money that you could buy a
car or buy a house with.

1179
01:33:06,798 --> 01:33:09,627
It could be, uh, surfaced.

1180
01:33:09,671 --> 01:33:11,498
Just from things that he said,

1181
01:33:11,542 --> 01:33:15,328
I believe that he knew in the
very beginning what was
happening.

1182
01:33:16,547 --> 01:33:17,983
And he could--

1183
01:33:19,332 --> 01:33:23,032
you know,
Lamont got him a place to live,

1184
01:33:24,294 --> 01:33:26,513
basically gave him
booze and drugs,

1185
01:33:26,557 --> 01:33:29,038
and he sat around and good--
had a good time,

1186
01:33:29,081 --> 01:33:30,517
and other people painted
paintings.

1187
01:33:30,561 --> 01:33:32,215
But it was small
scale, though.

1188
01:33:32,258 --> 01:33:34,913
It was some, it was enough for
all these people

1189
01:33:34,957 --> 01:33:37,307
that were around him to
get by.

1190
01:33:37,916 --> 01:33:40,658
You know, he wants
everybody to have a good life.

1191
01:33:46,446 --> 01:33:48,492
Well, we figured, near the end,

1192
01:33:48,535 --> 01:33:52,627
that they had a relationship
going on, sexually,
in a way.

1193
01:33:53,279 --> 01:33:55,064
The way they were
acting together.

1194
01:33:55,934 --> 01:33:58,589
Just the way he was always,
like, on him.

1195
01:33:58,633 --> 01:33:59,677
Touching him.

1196
01:34:00,417 --> 01:34:02,332
Like, rubbing his legs and...

1197
01:34:02,898 --> 01:34:04,421
Who was touching whom?

1198
01:34:04,464 --> 01:34:07,554
Gary was
touching him like that.

1199
01:34:08,991 --> 01:34:11,210
And was Norval receptive?

1200
01:34:11,254 --> 01:34:12,168
No.

1201
01:34:15,867 --> 01:34:17,739
He kept
moving to different chairs.

1202
01:34:19,001 --> 01:34:20,655
Being uncomfortable.

1203
01:34:21,612 --> 01:34:23,875
And so he stopped coming over
for a while.

1204
01:34:27,531 --> 01:34:31,970
And my aunt just went to
his house and gave money for
groceries and paid his rent.

1205
01:34:32,841 --> 01:34:34,712
And Gary just stayed back.

1206
01:34:38,194 --> 01:34:42,546
Over the years, this fraud
developed and snowballed

1207
01:34:42,589 --> 01:34:45,723
and became more prevalent,
and they became greedy,

1208
01:34:45,767 --> 01:34:47,464
and they wanted more and more
and more,

1209
01:34:47,507 --> 01:34:50,685
and they were doing paintings,
you know,
hundreds of paintings

1210
01:34:50,728 --> 01:34:56,473
and it's, you know, it-- it
became, uh-- it became
a monster for him.

1211
01:35:03,045 --> 01:35:04,524
They got greedy.

1212
01:35:04,568 --> 01:35:07,136
And they waded
into the river,
and they drowned in it.

1213
01:35:08,790 --> 01:35:12,097
And by then it was too late for Norval to do anything about it.

1214
01:35:17,494 --> 01:35:19,409
And then later in life,

1215
01:35:19,452 --> 01:35:23,108
what I learned about Gary Lamont
is that he's a creep

1216
01:35:23,152 --> 01:35:26,329
and been in
all kinds-- involved in all
kinds of things.

1217
01:35:32,639 --> 01:35:36,121
Are you scared talking
about the art fraud now?

1218
01:35:36,165 --> 01:35:38,297
I was in the beginning,
but I'm not anymore.

1219
01:35:38,341 --> 01:35:40,473
Because I
already-- you know,

1220
01:35:40,517 --> 01:35:43,999
I have fantasies of killing Gary
all the time over the sexual
assault stuff and that,

1221
01:35:44,042 --> 01:35:47,698
you know, so-- wasn't that,
you know.

1222
01:35:49,308 --> 01:35:53,878
I wouldn't be able to
live with myself after

1223
01:35:53,922 --> 01:35:55,924
if I just backed out now.

1224
01:36:05,672 --> 01:36:07,849
Gary had lots of Native
boarding students

1225
01:36:07,892 --> 01:36:10,416
that would come in from
the up North reserves

1226
01:36:10,460 --> 01:36:12,810
to continue their high school
education.

1227
01:36:16,161 --> 01:36:19,077
Well, my aunt signed up for
boarding students

1228
01:36:19,121 --> 01:36:22,646
from different reserves to live
in their hou-- in their home.

1229
01:36:26,432 --> 01:36:29,609
And I was friends
with a couple of them.

1230
01:36:34,484 --> 01:36:37,400
Well, they were coming
from small reserves,

1231
01:36:37,443 --> 01:36:38,967
some-- some of them were dry
reserves,

1232
01:36:39,010 --> 01:36:42,492
so they didn't know about
drinking or drugs.

1233
01:36:43,798 --> 01:36:45,669
So she would take six at a time.

1234
01:36:46,975 --> 01:36:48,715
Six boarding students.

1235
01:36:50,717 --> 01:36:51,936
Native guys.

1236
01:36:52,589 --> 01:36:56,288
In between eighteen
and twenty-five.

1237
01:36:58,595 --> 01:37:00,379
They wouldn't
take the females.

1238
01:37:03,992 --> 01:37:05,732
That's what he called
the camp,

1239
01:37:05,776 --> 01:37:08,126
it was just north of
the city, and they were like,

1240
01:37:08,170 --> 01:37:09,693
"Okay, well, let's go out
to camp."

1241
01:37:11,608 --> 01:37:15,786
Gary introduced them to having
a beer, or an alcohol drink.

1242
01:37:16,482 --> 01:37:20,704
He used to drop Valiums in our
drinks, right, and it was--

1243
01:37:20,747 --> 01:37:24,839
it was like a big joke - "Oh,
hahahaha, you got dosed,
duhduhduh,"

1244
01:37:24,882 --> 01:37:28,407
you know, and everybody, like,
he'd drug everybody
around the table,

1245
01:37:28,451 --> 01:37:31,454
different times,
different partying times, and...

1246
01:37:32,237 --> 01:37:36,198
And then we got stories from
the, some of the-- the boarders
they took,

1247
01:37:37,068 --> 01:37:40,332
that they're waking up with
their pants off and everything.

1248
01:37:40,376 --> 01:37:43,074
And being sore
when they'd go back.

1249
01:37:44,684 --> 01:37:46,904
So they didn't know what
was happening to them.

1250
01:37:51,561 --> 01:37:55,782
And then this, uh,
room to the right of it was, uh,

1251
01:37:55,826 --> 01:37:59,264
there was bunk beds in there for
all the Native boarding
students,

1252
01:37:59,308 --> 01:38:01,310
and this is where he kept
them all.

1253
01:38:03,007 --> 01:38:05,140
And I ended up getting
drugged,

1254
01:38:05,183 --> 01:38:08,926
and then he kicked
everybody out,
and then I had my own bedroom,

1255
01:38:08,970 --> 01:38:11,842
right beside his in the main
house, and everybody else,

1256
01:38:11,886 --> 01:38:15,846
he kicked out to the guest camp
and then locked the door.

1257
01:38:15,890 --> 01:38:19,458
That night, I-- there was, like,
a blue light from the stereo,

1258
01:38:19,502 --> 01:38:22,331
I remember, I remember him
coming into the room,

1259
01:38:23,158 --> 01:38:26,378
I was just thinking to
myself, "I'm fucked."

1260
01:38:34,691 --> 01:38:36,649
He kept the keys
on him at all times.

1261
01:38:36,693 --> 01:38:39,609
Once he locked the door,
there was no getting out.

1262
01:38:39,652 --> 01:38:43,439
He pretty much did whatever he
wanted.

1263
01:38:47,138 --> 01:38:49,184
And I was just so fucked up,

1264
01:38:49,227 --> 01:38:53,666
and then that's basically when I
became a prisoner in this house.

1265
01:38:54,406 --> 01:38:58,976
He threatened my life,
he started threatening me,
he told me once,

1266
01:38:59,020 --> 01:39:02,327
when he was raping me,
he was punching me in the head,

1267
01:39:02,371 --> 01:39:07,550
he told me that I better just go
along with it or I'll end up
like Scott Dove.

1268
01:39:12,772 --> 01:39:18,735
Scott Dove owed money for drugs to Gary. They found him.

1269
01:39:20,345 --> 01:39:25,481
He was
hung with his privates cut off
and shoved down his throat.

1270
01:39:30,399 --> 01:39:32,444
Gary was one of the suspects.

1271
01:39:33,924 --> 01:39:36,144
And was-- Was
anyone ever arrested?

1272
01:39:37,101 --> 01:39:41,279
They didn't have enough
evidence. So he got off the
charges.

1273
01:39:49,505 --> 01:39:52,856
He raped me,
and then just went to bed like
nothing happened,

1274
01:39:52,899 --> 01:39:56,381
and woke up the next day and
acted like nothing happened.

1275
01:39:58,427 --> 01:40:02,126
Everybody else was around,
I felt all ashamed and down...

1276
01:40:09,829 --> 01:40:14,530
This was Linda and Gary's
room. This was the living room.

1277
01:40:17,141 --> 01:40:20,840
I never expected the sexual
assaults to start happening
again,

1278
01:40:20,884 --> 01:40:22,799
because his wife lived
there, right?

1279
01:40:24,801 --> 01:40:26,846
And then my
room was there.

1280
01:40:29,719 --> 01:40:32,026
And, you know, we all lived on the same floor,

1281
01:40:32,069 --> 01:40:36,639
and he was coming into my room
at night and, you know,

1282
01:40:36,682 --> 01:40:39,772
raping me while his wife's,
you know,

1283
01:40:40,730 --> 01:40:44,603
just on the other side of the
kitchen in her bedroom,

1284
01:40:44,647 --> 01:40:47,650
and just progressively got worse
and worse

1285
01:40:47,693 --> 01:40:52,481
and more and more violent,
and I was scared, I was young,

1286
01:40:53,873 --> 01:40:56,180
and it was a nightly occurrence.

1287
01:40:57,660 --> 01:41:02,230
Uh, somewhere in the
neighbourhood of five, six
hundred times

1288
01:41:02,273 --> 01:41:06,234
that I could estimate.

1289
01:41:22,206 --> 01:41:24,643
A couple of the
students went to Linda,

1290
01:41:24,687 --> 01:41:27,472
and told what was happening to
them.

1291
01:41:28,560 --> 01:41:32,390
Then she con-- Well,
she confronted Gary,
and Gary denied everything.

1292
01:41:34,784 --> 01:41:38,179
She just believed Gary,
whatever Gary says.

1293
01:41:42,400 --> 01:41:47,188
I thought that people would
think of me, I'm a bitch,
you know, whatever.

1294
01:41:47,231 --> 01:41:49,233
You know,
just really negative.

1295
01:41:55,196 --> 01:42:00,375
It was like he was trying to
brainwash me, but I never
enjoyed it.

1296
01:42:00,418 --> 01:42:03,943
It, just, even to this day,
it just--

1297
01:42:04,857 --> 01:42:07,991
think about it, it really
bothers me.

1298
01:42:08,644 --> 01:42:10,994
Just-- it's-- yes.

1299
01:42:25,226 --> 01:42:28,011
With the Native school,
I went and called it in.

1300
01:42:28,054 --> 01:42:31,362
Told
the school what was going on,
so they put a stop to taking--

1301
01:42:31,406 --> 01:42:33,451
getting-- Linda to take
students.

1302
01:42:34,670 --> 01:42:37,063
And what was their
reaction, Gary and Linda's?

1303
01:42:37,107 --> 01:42:40,284
They were kind of upset about
it, 'cause they wanted that
income to come in,

1304
01:42:40,328 --> 01:42:41,503
so they can--

1305
01:42:41,546 --> 01:42:44,593
say they got
income from some other place

1306
01:42:44,636 --> 01:42:46,725
instead of what they were
actually doing.

1307
01:42:47,683 --> 01:42:50,642
So it was an excuse for them to
have all that money.

1308
01:43:12,316 --> 01:43:17,756
What year was it
that you began to speak out and
testify about the assault?

1309
01:43:17,800 --> 01:43:20,498
It was 2012.

1310
01:43:24,067 --> 01:43:28,376
2012 would be the
year I came out about it all,

1311
01:43:28,419 --> 01:43:32,162
uh, actually followed through
the cops, and then that's,

1312
01:43:32,206 --> 01:43:35,296
actually something got done,
something happened.

1313
01:43:38,124 --> 01:43:40,605
Thunder Bay OPP began
their investigation in June,

1314
01:43:40,649 --> 01:43:44,218
after receiving allegations of
incidents that occurred at
Warnica Lake

1315
01:43:44,261 --> 01:43:47,046
between 1997 and 2007.

1316
01:43:47,090 --> 01:43:49,875
As a result,
51-year-old Gary Bruce Lamont

1317
01:43:49,919 --> 01:43:53,618
has been charged with eight
offences, including assault,
sexual assault...

1318
01:43:53,662 --> 01:43:55,881
The OPP confirms that
52-year-old Gary Lamont

1319
01:43:55,925 --> 01:43:58,014
was arrested today on nine new
charges.

1320
01:43:58,057 --> 01:44:01,670
They include forcible
confinement,
three sexual assaults,

1321
01:44:01,713 --> 01:44:04,238
sexual exploitation,
and assault with a weapon.

1322
01:44:09,068 --> 01:44:13,856
As we've been going through the process of this fakes lawsuit,

1323
01:44:13,899 --> 01:44:18,730
some of the victims of Gary
Lamont filed complaints
with the police,

1324
01:44:18,774 --> 01:44:22,604
and that led to prosecution of
Gary Lamont

1325
01:44:22,647 --> 01:44:24,997
for sexual assault
and other charges.

1326
01:44:25,041 --> 01:44:29,088
He was convicted and sentenced to five years in federal prison.

1327
01:44:31,177 --> 01:44:34,877
Three new victims have come
forward, two men and one woman.

1328
01:44:36,618 --> 01:44:41,797
They ended up charging
him for one female. That was me.

1329
01:44:50,806 --> 01:44:53,591
I don't know,
I've cried lots about it,

1330
01:44:53,635 --> 01:44:56,290
I've got no more tears to cry
about this at all.

1331
01:45:00,642 --> 01:45:03,993
I feel good
about becoming the first one,

1332
01:45:04,036 --> 01:45:07,736
and giving other people the
courage to come forward

1333
01:45:07,779 --> 01:45:10,347
and put
this guy where he belongs.

1334
01:45:10,391 --> 01:45:15,700
In jail. He's a predator,
and that's where predators
belong, in a cage.

1335
01:45:15,744 --> 01:45:21,053
Can't control
themselves, it's just-- it's
horrible, he's a monster.

1336
01:45:23,360 --> 01:45:26,320
In every sense of
the word, a monster.

1337
01:45:49,430 --> 01:45:52,607
There's a lot of mixed feelings,
you know, nervousness.

1338
01:45:53,259 --> 01:45:56,959
Everything this trial represents
about the fake Morrisseaus,

1339
01:45:57,002 --> 01:46:01,746
and all the sexual assaults that
took place while these were
being made,

1340
01:46:02,617 --> 01:46:04,445
and it's just a lot.

1341
01:46:05,315 --> 01:46:09,841
I think he's very brave and
courageous for doing what he's
doing.

1342
01:46:09,885 --> 01:46:14,106
He's nervous, but,
you know, he's doing the right
thing and I'm proud of him.

1343
01:46:16,282 --> 01:46:19,590
She doesn't have to wonder
anymore, you know,

1344
01:46:19,634 --> 01:46:22,724
about everything,
what took place, what happened,

1345
01:46:23,594 --> 01:46:28,947
why I am the way I am, I guess,
today, how it shaped me.

1346
01:46:29,731 --> 01:46:31,820
Messed
up my life, pretty much.

1347
01:46:35,476 --> 01:46:39,175
Starting to get nervous,
yeah. Just sweating away.

1348
01:46:39,218 --> 01:46:40,306
Me too.

1349
01:47:08,334 --> 01:47:10,685
In my opinion,
I'm being a warrior,

1350
01:47:10,728 --> 01:47:13,383
I'm standing up for what's
right, what I believe in,

1351
01:47:13,427 --> 01:47:17,126
and the Native people were all
about that.

1352
01:47:21,565 --> 01:47:23,001
How do you feel?

1353
01:47:23,045 --> 01:47:24,176
Extremely nervous.

1354
01:47:29,181 --> 01:47:31,357
This is, uh,
private property.

1355
01:47:31,401 --> 01:47:33,229
Yeah. No kidding.

1356
01:47:33,272 --> 01:47:34,752
-How you doing, Gabe?
-Good.

1357
01:47:35,710 --> 01:47:37,146
It's incredible.

1358
01:47:37,189 --> 01:47:39,235
I'm totally blown away,

1359
01:47:39,278 --> 01:47:44,109
I had the biggest cry last night
to realize with overwhelming
truth

1360
01:47:44,153 --> 01:47:46,111
what these people are doing.

1361
01:47:46,155 --> 01:47:50,855
The beauty of it, the exposure, the dignity. It's like a sacred moment.

1362
01:47:55,164 --> 01:47:56,818
-How's it going?
-How are you doing?

1363
01:47:56,861 --> 01:48:01,649
-I'm good, you?
-I'm so proud of you.
Thanks for doing this.

1364
01:48:01,692 --> 01:48:06,088
Are you testifying again today,
too? Yeah, I heard you did
yesterday. I heard you did good.

1365
01:48:08,438 --> 01:48:10,527
-Well, should we head in?
-Definitely.

1366
01:48:10,571 --> 01:48:11,572
Yeah.

1367
01:48:15,576 --> 01:48:16,751
All right, babe, you ready?

1368
01:48:16,794 --> 01:48:17,795
Let's go.

1369
01:48:19,797 --> 01:48:22,713
All these paintings
offer a story.

1370
01:48:22,757 --> 01:48:27,544
Gary pretty much just
took advantage of it for profit.

1371
01:48:29,024 --> 01:48:30,721
To make a penny,
you know.

1372
01:48:30,765 --> 01:48:34,769
This is my culture and
my heritage, being Native,

1373
01:48:35,596 --> 01:48:40,775
and total disrespect,
disregard for anything.

1374
01:48:42,167 --> 01:48:45,388
And it
just doesn't sit well with me,

1375
01:48:45,431 --> 01:48:51,220
how he's making
money off of Natives like that.

1376
01:48:57,792 --> 01:49:01,535
I felt like crying after I came
out, brought up a lot of stuff.

1377
01:49:02,492 --> 01:49:05,321
I feel really shitty mood,
personally, you know,

1378
01:49:05,364 --> 01:49:07,758
and this-- I don't know, I'm
feeling really down right now.

1379
01:49:08,542 --> 01:49:12,850
Trying to forget about some
of this stuff, you know.

1380
01:49:14,548 --> 01:49:16,854
I wanted to hug you in the
courtroom,

1381
01:49:16,898 --> 01:49:18,639
but I didn't know if I was
allowed.

1382
01:49:19,770 --> 01:49:21,772
-That was powerful.
-Thank you.

1383
01:49:22,381 --> 01:49:25,776
Thank you. I'll
see you in a bit.

1384
01:49:25,820 --> 01:49:26,647
Okay.

1385
01:49:32,130 --> 01:49:36,221
Do you know what
was testified to at the end of
the last leg of the trial?

1386
01:49:37,396 --> 01:49:40,008
Two people testified
that they were inside an art
fraud ring--

1387
01:49:40,051 --> 01:49:42,706
-You're kidding.
---paintings with
black dry brush on them.

1388
01:49:44,055 --> 01:49:45,796
Hahaha. Very funny.

1389
01:49:45,840 --> 01:49:48,016
That's what was
testified to, I'm not kidding.

1390
01:49:48,059 --> 01:49:50,801
I don't-- I don't disagree.
Where are they? Did they show
any?

1391
01:49:50,845 --> 01:49:52,629
They described
the whole process.

1392
01:49:52,673 --> 01:49:55,197
They described. I can describe
many things to you,

1393
01:49:55,240 --> 01:49:58,417
but if I don't show you,
you don't even know it exists!

1394
01:49:58,983 --> 01:50:00,724
So you think it
was all made up?

1395
01:50:00,768 --> 01:50:03,118
I have never
seen a fake. Have you?

1396
01:50:03,771 --> 01:50:08,297
-Well, I've seen...
-Have you? I have
not. What can I tell you?

1397
01:50:18,873 --> 01:50:22,920
Randy Potter here, we're gonna
show off this beautiful Norval
Morrisseau.

1398
01:50:22,964 --> 01:50:27,359
There's a lot of people
that are saying that there are
no fakes out there,

1399
01:50:27,403 --> 01:50:31,363
when I've seen hundreds and
hundreds of fake paintings.

1400
01:50:35,237 --> 01:50:40,895
I just feel like Gary pretty
much raped my culture,
doing this.

1401
01:50:45,726 --> 01:50:47,989
I just wanted to
buy a painting, really.

1402
01:52:36,314 --> 01:52:38,360
What do you
know about this painting?

1403
01:52:39,535 --> 01:52:43,757
On a personal level?
I'd give you five bucks for it.

1404
01:52:46,542 --> 01:52:49,066
Spirit Energy of Mother Earth,

1405
01:52:49,110 --> 01:52:52,722
that sounds really familiar.

1406
01:52:53,636 --> 01:52:55,116
Spirit Energy.

1407
01:52:56,595 --> 01:53:00,730
'Cause it looks
all, like, lots of, many of,

1408
01:53:00,774 --> 01:53:03,864
I've seen that Benji has
painted, for sure.

1409
01:53:05,996 --> 01:53:10,479
You said that the
one that his lawsuit is over,
you don't think is yours, right?

1410
01:53:10,522 --> 01:53:11,567
I don't think it's mine.

1411
01:53:13,787 --> 01:53:18,530
It kind of reminds me, uh,
the bottom piece here reminds me
of one that Benji painted,

1412
01:53:18,574 --> 01:53:21,229
I called it, uh,
the 'Kung Fu Bears.'

1413
01:53:21,272 --> 01:53:25,407
Cause it was
a bear and it looked like
they're doing kung fu.

1414
01:53:27,322 --> 01:53:29,280
You don't
think it's a Norval?

1415
01:53:29,324 --> 01:53:32,283
No. I don't.
Not personally.

1416
01:53:33,458 --> 01:53:36,244
- And you don't
know anything about...
-No.

1417
01:53:36,287 --> 01:53:38,202
-Did you paint it?
-No.

1418
01:53:39,290 --> 01:53:42,380
I swear on Norval's grave
and my grandmother's.

1419
01:53:42,424 --> 01:53:43,947
I never painted that.

1420
01:53:44,818 --> 01:53:48,604
If I could, it would look ten
times better than that.

1421
01:53:48,647 --> 01:53:52,826
That looks like my five-year-old
son painted it. Okay?