O'Connor was on the committee that organized the auction and was responsible for acquiring paintings for the auction.
There is a conflict of interest here. The guy is in charge of acquiring donated paintings for the church.
Here's my scenario:
1) Hale unknowingly donates expensive painting to church
2) O'Conner realizes that he may have an expensive painting on his hands. His duty is to get the best price for the church. This involves getting it appraised and informing all potential bidders of it's possible value. Instead, he tells no one except for his two friends. Sounds like fraud to me.
I am going to have to rethink my position on this. If what you say is correct, someone should be going to jail and the proceeds should go to the church.
I agree. I don't believe for a moment that O'Connor and his friends didn't know what they had on their hands. How do you even look at a painting like that and not realize it's got to be worth something? At any rate, as you pointed out, it was his respnsibility to get the best price he could for the painting, which would definitely have meant getting it appraised. The guy's a crook and should be fined heavily for his dereliction of duty.
Yup, O'Connor should have apprised the former owners of the painting's true value...at the very least the Hale family would have a huge charitable tax deduction.
I agree with you. I think this guy was in charge of soliciting the donations, knew the painting was valuable, did nothing to inform the donator or the church so they could get the best price for it, bought the thing himself and has now made a tidy profit.
He should not be forced to give a donation, but he certainly should be ashamed of himself.
Different story if the purchaser just got lucky and picked up an unknown gem of a piece that was worth a bundle.
Regards,