OMA Suit in Progress
Local News Staff 
Just days after court documents indicated that Orlando Museum of Art and some defendants were working on a settlement in the museum's lawsuit over its "Heroes & Monsters" exhibition, former museum director Aaron De Groft has countersued the institution.
In an email to the Orlando Sentinel, De Groft said he was
"going to war to get my good name back, my professional standing and personal and professional exoneration."
De Groft was fired by the museum's board in June 2022, shortly after the FBI raided the "Heroes & Monsters" exhibition and seized art purportedly by acclaimed artist Jean-Michel Basquiat as part of a fraud investigation.
The museum's lawsuit, filed in August against De Groft and the owners of the artwork, claims they colluded to use the exhibition to raise the value of the art and thereby increase personal profits by selling the art later.
"I have kept my head down and suffered slings and arrows and humiliations when I did nothing wrong and all everyone else did was lie, misreport, make things up, get so much wrong, De Groft wrote, adding no one had reached out to him to discuss settling the lawsuit.
In his countersuit, De Groft strikes at the center of the museum's case: That he and the owners knew the artwork was fraudulent.
