The ownership of a Jackson Pollock collage, part of the millions of dollars of marital property at issue in former state Sen. Alex Kasser’s contentious divorce, got a little murkier Wednesday due to a federal court ruling of appeals.
The Greenwich Democrat divorced Wall Street banker Seth Bergstein a year ago in the political news by announcing she was resigning from the General Assembly because the strain of the breakup made living in Greenwich impossible. A year earlier, he revealed that he is gay and had fallen in love with a member of the legislative staff.
The signed Pollock hung in the $6 million Kasser-Bergstein mansion on Lake Avenue in inner Greenwich until the divorce, when Bergstein claimed it was jointly owned by the couple and their future ownership was up to him. a state divorce court.
Kasser’s brother, Matthew Mochary, claimed the collage is his, a gift from his mother that he lent his sister and Bergstein to display at their home. When Bergstein refused to return the art, Mochary sued in federal court.
U.S. District Judge Victor Bolden dismissed Mochary’s lawsuit last year, ruling by Bergstein, who wanted to leave the property to a property settlement in divorce court. On Wednesday, a federal appeals court in New York reversed Bolden, meaning Mochary can renew his fight over the art in federal court while the divorce trial, now scheduled to begin in October
Mochry claims in his suit that his parents bought the 16-by-21-inch mixed media collage, valued at $175,000, at Sotheby’s in 1978. He says his mother, Mary Veronica Kasser Mochary, gave him the art in 1996 when he finished business school.
After allowing the work to be displayed in art museums for two decades, Mochary says he loaned it to his sister and Bergstein in 2016 to display at home on the condition that it be “returned immediately upon request “. Kasser moved out of the house when she filed for divorce, leaving Bergstein “in sole possession of the collage,” according to the lawsuit.
Bergstein claims that the Pollock was not borrowed, but was a gift to his wife and, as a result, part of the disputed marital property. In a federal court filing, Bergstein claims Mochary’s mother testified in a deposition that she gave the Pollock to her daughter and confirmed the gift on a tax return. Furthermore, Bergstein claims that his wife has listed the Pollock as personal property on three separate financial statements.
The question of who gets the Pollock is not likely to be answered immediately.
