Posted on 05/23/2007 3:19:39 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
Auction passes up Traficant's art
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Sabrina Eaton
Plain Dealer Bureau
Washington -- A kitschy pair of acrylic paintings by prison Picasso Jim Traficant got the brushoff at a public television charity auction when their donor, a juror in Traficant's case who now regrets the guilty verdict, asked auctioneers to broadcast a statement that called the former congressman a "political prisoner."
The former juror, Leo Glaser of Independence, said he was "disappointed" that WVIZ Channel 25 withheld the paintings and said they would have attracted enthusiastic bidding.
"PBS is getting taxpayer money, so I understand their reasoning for not wanting to say what I wanted them to say," said Glaser, who called WVIZ for weeks after the April 26-29 auction to learn the disposition of the paintings titled "Winter's Night Barn Scene" and "Impressionist." When the station didn't answer his questions, he feared they were lost or stolen.
WVIZ spokeswoman Peg Neeson said the station got more donations than it needed for the auction, so not everything was sold. Glaser's inquiries arrived when workers were "swamped" processing auction transactions, so they could not respond immediately. She said the station will return the paintings to Glaser. She said the donor's views on Traficant wouldn't have been aired, anyway.
"When we show work on the air, we only describe the artwork, the techniques, and history of the artist," said Neeson. "It isn't designed to read political statements."
Glaser became convinced of Traficant's innocence after watching testimony before Congress by witnesses who didn't testify at the Youngstown Democrat's criminal trial. He said jurors in the case were "bamboozled the way that President Bush bamboozled Congress by saying there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," and that prosecutors manufactured evidence in the case.
Prosecutors deny Glaser's charges of improprieties.
"He is not a political prisoner and he was convicted by a jury of his peers," said First Assistant U.S. Attorney William Edwards.
Glaser obtained the paintings from Dan Fritz of Akron, who regularly corresponds with Traficant at a Minnesota medical prison facility. Fritz said Traficant, 66, has not disclosed why he was hospitalized, but describes it as age-related and says he has recovered.
Traficant is scheduled for a September 2009 release from prison. Fritz said that 23 days were added to Traficant's sentence when he was elected inmate representative at a prison in upstate New York and he became outspoken in criticizing inmates' treatment. The Bureau of Prisons won't discuss Traficant's prison service for privacy reasons.
Fritz has been electronically archiving the images Traficant creates in prison so Traficant can make greeting cards, posters and coffee mugs out of them when he gets out.
Some of Traficant's art is being sold on the www.beammeupart.com Web site. Last year, prosecutors tried to garnish the proceeds from those sales to pay a $150,000 judgment against Traficant, but they dropped the action after Traficant wrote a letter that said his paintings were gifts to the woman who operates the Web site, Sybille Oelschlager.
"I have received no funds -- not one penny of remuneration, and I am still being pursued for moneys I have never seen," Traficant wrote in a letter to Oelschlager.
He should put the M somewhere else though. Looks like a bat or some flying beast.
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