Detective Sergeant Jason Rybak of the Thunder Bay Police was the lead Fraud Investigator of the Norval Morrisseau fake art ring.David Jackson/The Globe and Mail
Homicide investigator Jason Rybak was digging into an unsolved murder in Thunder Bay five years ago when he was contacted by the deceased teenager’s mother about a documentary that included her son’s case.
That phone call and a series of improbable plot twists that followed led the Thunder Bay Police Service and the Ontario Provincial Police to charge eight people in March, 2023, in what the investigators call the world’s biggest art fraud.
Their joint 2½-year probe focused on fraudulent paintings attributed to acclaimed Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau, also known as Copper Thunderbird, from the Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek First Nation in Ontario.
The complex tale behind the fake art and the elaborate cast of characters in the story seem like something out of Hollywood.
The connection between the fraud and the homicide case, detailed in the documentary, hinges on a man named Gary Lamont.
Lamont, a long-time Thunder Bay resident, was previously convicted for sex crimes. The film detailed how he was a suspect in the teen’s death but has never been charged in connection to the homicide. It also included allegations that Lamont was involved in the faking of art attributed to Morrisseau.
Last December, Lamont pleaded guilty to his role in the art fraud and he was sentenced to five years. Another guilty plea for fraud was entered in early June by a man named David Voss, who Rybak calls an “architect” of the scheme. Trials for three of the others charged are expected to begin early next year, while two had their charges dropped by the Crown.
Morrisseau’s authentic work, featuring vibrant colours and representations of Ojibwa stories and legends, is lauded in the art world and many around the globe perceive him as a force in the realm of Indigenous art. First Nations leaders say it has been instrumental in helping to explain their history.
But the late artist’s legacy has been tarnished by thousands of fakes – between 4,500 and 6,000, according to police estimates – attributed to him.
People who have been immersed in exposing the Morrisseau forgeries believe the magnitude of the case – and the length of time it was able to persist – underscore the rationale for having a dedicated team of investigators to tackle this kind of work in Canada. But no such unit exists here, unlike other countries. The U.S., for instance, has a multiperson team to handle art crime.
So far, Canada has not expressed interest in this idea. The federal Department of Canadian Heritage declined to comment on calls for the creation of such a unit and directed questions to the RCMP. The Mounties say there is no consideration within the national police force to set up an art-fraud investigation team.
Two weeks after speaking to the dead teen’s mother about the documentary in 2019, Rybak called the FBI. He says the Thunder Bay Police knew there wasn’t a specialized art-crime unit within the RCMP and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the U.S. was “the best in the world” at this kind of work.
Art crime may seem largely like a victimless offence that often centres on wealthy art lovers getting ripped off. But experts say it is about much more than that – including connections to organized crime.
Since its inception in 2004, the FBI’s art-crime team has recovered more than 20,000 items valued at more than US$900-million. Agents get specialized training and work in co-operation with law enforcement officials.
Rybak’s outreach to the FBI began with a very basic question: How do we investigate art fraud?
Sgt Rybak, photographed on July 18, in Thunder Bay, Ont., sits between a Roy Thomas painting, who was a friend of Morrisseau, and the Robinson-Superior Treaty while answering a call inside the police station.David Jackson/The Globe and Mail
Rybak, a 49-year-old detective sergeant and married father of two, grew up in Thunder Bay. He became a police officer in Toronto and then in London, Ont., before returning to his hometown to join the Thunder Bay Police Service around the time he was looking to start a family.
His work there has taken many different turns. He was part of a rescue that resulted in a medal of bravery in 2014 from then-governor-general David Johnston. When you ask Rybak about that, he modestly says the officers were “focused on the task at hand and what we had to get done.”
From left: Jason Rybak, Clark McKever, G-G David Johnston, Ken Ogima, James Elvish, Kevin Carroll.MCpl Vincent Carbonneau/Supplied
In May, 2010, police got a call about a vehicle that had plunged into Lake Superior, jumping a barrier and going into the frigid water. A woman in her 60s had a medical event and lost consciousness in her car, with her foot jamming the accelerator. The water rescue that followed – involving Rybak and four other officers – is something he describes as the pinnacle of teamwork.
And then there was the time he came to investigate the massive art fraud involving fraudulent paintings attributed to Morrisseau.
Rybak says he treated that case like he would any other another criminal investigation. In basic terms, he says that means following the information – a process he likens to putting together a big jigsaw puzzle.
But he would be the first person to tell you he isn’t an art expert equipped with specialized training. The same would be true of most police officers across Canada.
When he watched the documentary Dolly Dove, the mother of the deceased teenager, had called him about, Rybak thought it might contain new information that could advance the investigation into the killing of her son, Scott.
Scott was last seen leaving for school on Halloween in 1984. That December, the 17-year-old’s body was found at the side of a road near a rock quarry by a couple out walking their dog. Rybak says the nature of Scott’s injuries led police to conclude it was murder.
Instead of learning more about Scott’s death, which is still considered an open and active investigation by Thunder Bay Police 40 years later, watching the documentary set off a series of developments that Rybak could have never predicted.
He says police interviewed everyone featured in the film about the Morrisseau art-fraud allegations. Officers also obtained a search warrant for Lamont’s Thunder Bay home in September, 2019.
There, they found art.
The case notebook of Detective Sergeant Jason Rybak with the Thunder Bay Police, titled Totton, in his office.David Jackson/The Globe and Mail
During the 2019 call with Dolly, Rybak says she told him a man named Kevin Hearn contacted her to tell her that Scott’s case was included in a documentary about Norval Morrisseau rip-offs, There Are No Fakes.
At the time, Rybak did not know who Hearn was. It turns out he’s a musician who the officer now considers a hero for helping to expose the Morrisseau art fraud.
Hearn is best known for being a member of the Barenaked Ladies – a band that has sold more than 15 million albums, won multiple Juno Awards and been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
Hearn is also an art collector who, in 2005, purchased a painting called Spirit Energy of Mother Earth, attributed to Morrisseau. He bought it at the Maslak McLeod Gallery in Toronto, owned by Joseph McLeod.
In 2012, Hearn sued the gallery and cited in court documents that he believed the painting was a “fake or forgery.” A statement of defence filed by McLeod’s lawyer Brian Shiller said his client was not in the business of selling fake works. The trial judge dismissed Hearn’s allegations.
McLeod was ultimately found liable for fraud in September, 2019, by the Ontario Court of Appeal and Hearn was awarded more than $60,000 in the legal battle over the artwork.
This June, Voss’s agreed statement of facts included admission that Spirit Energy of Mother Earth was an inauthentic painting.
Hearn was a propelling force behind There Are No Fakes – the backstory on the purchase of Spirit Energy of Mother Earth, and aspects of the court battle, were featured in it. He says he pitched the idea to Jamie Kastner, a filmmaker with whom he went to high school, over a 2017 lunch.
The documentary aired on TVO in 2020.
Hearn says he decided to reach out to Dove prior to a screening of the documentary in Thunder Bay after he learned through a local business owner that Scott’s parents had bought tickets to see it.
He says that during their conversation, she “expressed gratitude that Scott’s story was being kept alive.”
A day or two after speaking with Dove, Hearn says he was sitting backstage at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Wis., and had just finished a soundcheck when the phone rang. It was Rybak, who wanted to see the documentary immediately.
Soon after, Hearn says, Lamont’s house was raided and “a full-scale police investigation into the art fraud” began – something he calls a milestone moment.
“It felt like finally the tides were turning.”
Detective Sergeant Rybak was the lead Fraud Investigator of the Norval Morrisseau fake art ring.David Jackson/The Globe and Mail
In his legal battle against McLeod, Hearn was represented by Jonathan Sommer, a lawyer specializing in art fraud who has also been deeply entrenched in exposing the Morrisseau fakes.
Around 2011, Sommer says he started to reach out to police from forces in Ontario about his concerns – including the Thunder Bay Police Service and the OPP. He says he also contacted the RCMP. But for years, police at every level “resisted any kind” of discussion about it and it was essentially a “no-go subject” until Rybak came along and was willing to listen.
Sommer co-runs Morrisseau Art Consulting, which investigates artwork attributed to the acclaimed artist. He works with researcher John Zemanovich, an artist, collector and former gallery owner who provided information to Sommer’s law firm in the case of Hearn vs. McLeod.
Sommer says the fraud lasted years longer than it should have, got “vastly bigger” and caused much more damage because Canada did not have a dedicated art-crime division to investigate long-held concerns about fraudulent works attributed to Morrisseau.
He believes there could be a division of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office to act as a co-ordinating agency to help police forces, rather than having an investigative unit exist within a specific force.
Hearn feels his involvement with the Morrisseau case makes it hard to deny the need for a federal art-fraud team.
Art crime is a global issue, Rybak notes, adding municipal polices forces do not have the ability to travel around the world to conduct investigations. He says, for example, that police know of hundreds of suspected fraudulent Morrisseau paintings in far-off locations, such as Germany and China.
The FBI has dedicated resources and funding to do its work, he says.
“In Canada, we have to have that same approach.”
For now, Rybak keeps a biography about Morrisseau on his desk in Thunder Bay. It is a reminder of the unexpected road that led him to becoming one of the key investigators on the biggest art fraud in the world while trying to solve how a teenager was killed in the Northwestern Ontario city decades prior.
