Frazetta's son busted for trying to steal his father's art

Police report that Alfonso Frank Frazetta (above) was caught red handed stealing 90 of his famous father's paintings. They said he and an accomplice had broken into the Frank Frazetta museum in rural Pennsylvania and were loading the paintings, worth $20 million, into a trailer.

Alfonso, 52, told the police his father had instructed him to "enter the museum by any means necessary to move all the paintings to a storage facility." But Frazetta, who is 81 and was in Florida at the time of the alleged theft said he did not give his son permission to remove the paintings from the museum. (Thanks, Antinous!)

• [Tony Moore]

  i hope that someday my kids can steal my shit to the tune of $20mil. i’d be happy if my estate was worth $20K!

  I wonder if Mike Hoffman’s a suspect as the accomplice.

• [sebastian6]

  “he did’t not give his son permission”

  Does that somehow count as, like, a triple negative?

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Fixeded.

• [Tony Moore]

  i hope that someday my kids can steal my shit to the tune of $20mil. i’d be happy if my estate was worth $20K!

  I wonder if Mike Hoffman’s a suspect as the accomplice.

• [Xeni Jardin]

  Wow. Get a load of the taupe-toned chompers on that poor fella.

  • [jfrancis]

    and he was red-handed, too.

• [Anonymous]

  Pretty low down nonsense after the passing of Frank’s wife.

• [ChiaLynn]

  The comments on the local news article about it are fascinating – several people saying that Frank Jr. was just trying to keep more of his father’s work from being looted.

  http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091210/NEWS/912109991/-1/News

• [Sekino]

  I’m not normally in favour of spanking children… except under such circumstances.

• [Cowicide]

  By any mean necessary get mah paintinz to z bunker!!! Ahhh!!!

• [greengestalt]

  Please ref to the rest of the article:

  Due to extreme age, Frazetta is suffering from Senile Dementia. The business stuff was handled by Frazetta’s wife, but then she passed away. It’s her DOCTOR that is now ‘in charge’… Can you say “Conflict of Interest”?

  What’d you do if you had a legacy that’d let you live easy and rich for a long time, or assure you’d be OK even in a great depression 2.0, but then as your parents were passing away people they interacted with (Lawyers, doctors) suddenly had the “Rights” to it all transferred to them? Wish I was on whatever jury he faces, I’d let him off even if he shot them.

  “Intellectual property” shouldn’t just be for big companies. When Fraz goes, his son should own the ‘rights’ to his paintings, to profit from the sale/use of them. Granted a person may “Disinherit” someone, but when it’s their doctor/lawyer at their death bed naming themselves as the new “Heir” there’s outright lies if not coercion and manipulation going on. Frankly, such a professional should NOT be allowed under any circumstances to get assets that way as a “Conflict of Interest”.

  • [Anonymous]

    When you die your work should go into the public domain. End of story. None of this “estate for 100 years” crap. The kids should earn their own living not off the work of some ancestor.

• [Anonymous]

  Such a sad note in the legacy of a great artist.

• [Anonymous]

  Even if he had legitimate reasons to want the paintings, he definitely didn’t do any good by stealing them.

• [Anonymous]

  Strange isn’t it that jr. thinks he has any rights to anything while his father is still living! And lets not forget he has a brother and two sisters. Many people give their first born the “executor” title, but rarely hand over everything lock stock and barrel without consideration for all heirs. This is pure unadulterated GREED. I hope Dad lives a long long time!

• [Anonymous]

  They said he had two other guys caught in the place how come they did’nt have a mug shot posted? only their names.

• [toyg]

  greengestalt, intellectual property was *invented* for this sort of cases and it does usually work in this area; problems start only when you can transfer it to different entities.
  In Europe, where authors cannot give away their rights, Frazetta’s word would always be final and things like these simply wouldn’t happen. If anything, problems are usually of the opposite type because of ordinary inheritance law (i.e. “disowned” relatives tend to get a piece of the pie regardless of the author’s wishes).

  • [Anonymous]

    Re: disinherited still get a piece of the pie.

    Not true. By explicitly giving a token amount, say five dollars, in a will to a disinherited individual the wishes of the deceased are legally viewed as total, explicit and final. It is only by not being explicit, that is by not giving the disinherited person any mention in the will, that there is legal question.

    So…

    If there are people you don’t want to get anything you have to give them something as a token of recognition that they aren’t going to get anything more.

• [sferris]

  I’m heartbroken to hear all this after getting to know this family over the years.
I just sent a card for Ellie. Very sad.
I believe Lori that Frank Jr. was trying to secure the work and avoid a sell-off by mounting greed. Some of them are seeing dollars instead of history and art.
I hope this resolves and the family and work stay put.
  
Steve Ferris

• [sferris]

  I am interested in knowing why he is being held at 500,000 bail. Why no-one has posted for him if he was doing something he was told he should do.
  I know Frank Jr. He would never sell these paintings. This seems completely out there because we don’t know the recent goings-on as to who was trying to sell the paintings and who is in control of the estate.
  Where’s Doc Dave when you need him.
  Steve