“OMA denies it committed any of the unlawful actions alleged in the Amended Counterclaim and denies De Groft is entitled to any of the relief sought,” reads the museum’s court filings, as first quoted by the Orlando Sentinel.

In August 2023, the OMA filed suit against De Groft, accusing him of introducing a series of paintings falsely attributed to Jean-Michael Basquiat for personal profit. The works were exhibited in the now-notorious show “Heroes & Monsters: Jean-Michel Basquiat,” which opened in early 2022 and shuttered that June after an FBI raid of the premises.

The works were seized by authorities amid the revelation of a years-long investigation into their origins. The museum also sued the owners of the artwork, however all defendants but De Groft were later dropped from the suit.

De Groft countersued the OMA in November 2023, claiming wrongful termination and defamation. According to him, the former board chairwoman of the OMA, Cynthia Brumback, and an outside legal team for the museum had given the green light for the exhibition, despite being dealt an FBI subpoena in July 2021 for any documents related to the 25 mixed-media paintings.

He is seeking $314,246.40 plus additional expenses as part of his claim of breach of contract, in addition to unspecified compensation for his defamation claim by the OMA, per court documents. De Groft’s defamation case is supported in part by public statements made by Mark Elliott, chairman of the museum’s board of trustees.

“He abused his position of trust, lied to anyone who questioned the provenance of the artwork, created an environment of fear and hostility amongst the staff, and brought great shame to our community by mounting an exhibition of forged works in which he had a hidden financial interest, as discovered by the investigation commissioned by the OMA Board of Trustees and detailed in our Complaint,” Elliott said earlier this year, as published by local media. “At a time when authenticity and provenance are increasingly questioned, we must continue to stand against those like De Groft, who would abuse the process for personal gain.”

According to the museum, the “statements made by Mark Elliott are true and/or based on truthful information. In the alternative, at the time the alleged defamatory statements were made by Mark Elliott, he believed the statements to be true.”

Last August, the OMA sued De Groft and the owners of a series of paintings included in the scandal-ridden 2022 show “Heroes & Monsters: Jean-Michel Basquiat.” The museum alleged that De Groft and others used the show and the museum’s reputation to legitimize a group of 25 paintings they claimed were by Basquiat so that they could be sold after. However, the show was shuttered in June 2022 after several reports doubting their status as bonafide Basquiats, which culminated in the FBI seizing the paintings. A subsequent FBI investigation provided evidence that the works were not by Basquiat, with Los Angeles-based auctioneer Michael Barzman admitting in a plea deal to helping paint and sell the works himself.

The case figures to be a complicated one. Akerman LLP, the law firm representing the museum, said in the case-management report that it expects to depose 50 “art scholars and museum directors” for the case. Further, a representative for the firm told the Sentinel that the lawsuit could cost the museum $500,000. That’s in addition to the more than $100,000 OMA has already paid Akerman since June 2022, according to the Sentinel, when the FBI raided the museum and seized the allegedly phony paintings.

Further delay in the suit could be caused by a series of countersuits against the OMA. DeGroft filed a countersuit against the OMA in November claiming wrongful termination, breach of contract, and defamation. In the countersuit, DeGroft claimed he is being made a scapegoat as part of the OMA’s media strategy for dealing with the scandal. He alleged that Cynthia Brumback, the OMA’s former board chair who resigned in the wake of the Basquiat scandal, and an outside legal team, had approved of the exhibition, even after it was clear the FBI, which subpoenaed the OMA for records regarding the paintings a year before they were seized, was investigating claims of forgery.

Additional countersuits for defamation are expected from defendants in the case, including the group of artworks’ owners called the Basquiat Venice Collection Group/ who claim “that the value of the Basquiat works of art has been tremendously devalued by OMA’s statements to various outlets, including but not limited to the filing of this lawsuit,” according to the court documents. 

De Groft and the owners of the supposed Basquiats have denied wrongdoing and maintain that the pieces are real.

There have been reports that mediation and a settlement could resolve the dispute between museum and DeGroft, though, according to court documents, “certain parties” have entered into negotiations and “appear to be far from settlement,” however they have agreed to a neutral mediator.