Former Birmingham art dealer sentenced to over five years in prison

Wendy Halstead Beard, 59, of Birmingham, was sentenced Sept. 11 to 5 years and 3 months in federal prison for wire fraud, announced U.S. Attorney Dawn N. Ison.
One of her victims was Van Buren Township reporter J. Ross Baughman, 71, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist and college professor.
Joining in the announcement of sentencing was Cheyvoryea Gibson, Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A news release was issued.
Beard was sentenced before United States District Judge Judith E. Levy in Ann Arbor. Beard’s sentence follows her guilty plea to one count of wire fraud arising from a multi-year scheme in which she received millions of dollars’ worth of fine art photography prints on consignment, sold the artwork without the knowledge of the owners, kept the profits for her own personal gain, and continually deceived the owners about the status of their photographs.
Judge Levy also ordered Beard to pay restitution in the amount of more than $2 million.
According to court records, between March 2019 and October 2022, Beard engaged in an ongoing scheme to defraud dozens of her customers, many of whom were elderly. The primary purpose of the scheme was for Beard to convert to her own use multiple fine art photographs that had been provided to her on a consignment basis, in order to sell those photographs and keep the proceeds for herself (rather than turning over the proceeds to the consignors).
She also took thousands of dollars in payments from other victims, for photographs which she then failed to deliver. On at least one occasion Beard victimized two individuals with one photograph — never providing the photograph to the purchaser while also failing to pay the original consigner following the sale.
When questioned by her victims about the whereabouts of their artwork (or their share of the proceeds), Beard repeatedly lied to them, inventing more and more ridiculous justifications for her delay in repayment or return of consigned property. These excuses consisted of, among other things, exaggerating the severity of her own health problems, including claiming (1) to have recently been in a coma and (2) to have received a double-lung transplant.
Beard also created fake “employee” identities which she used to correspond with her victims in a further effort to delay detection and conceal her theft.
“My office stands ready to investigate and prosecute elder financial abuse in all its forms and will continue to hold perpetrators like Beard accountable for their actions,” said U.S. Attorney Ison. “Beard’s ongoing deception was of a level that we rarely see, even in fraud cases, lying to her customers repeatedly in an attempt to conceal her scheme. Today’s sentence will hopefully bring a measure of closure for the more than three-dozen victims who trusted Wendy Beard with their valuable artwork.”
“Preying on vulnerable individuals in any form is utterly deplorable and will not be tolerated,” said Cheyvoryea Gibson, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Michigan. “Ms. Beard’s calculated criminal acts displayed a complete disregard for the victims who placed their trust in who they believed to be a legitimate business owner.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Birmingham Police Department and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ryan A. Particka and Adriana Dydell.
She was arraigned Oct. 14, 2022 and she has been free on unsecured $10,000 bond.
During the FBI’s investigation, over 100 rare photographs with a combined estimated value of about $1.6 million were identified as being consigned to Beard and not returned or sold to victims without being delivered.
Beard operated a gallery out of a storefront in Birmingham until 2020 when the gallery was closed and relocated to her Franklin, MI residence.
One of the five top victims was Van Buren Township resident J. Ross Baughman who was interviewed by two FBI agents after he made a formal complaint about how Beard has possession of 20 of his rare photographs by Ansel Adams and other famous photographers that he had consigned to her for sale for a lump sum of $40,000 in February 2020. The consignment was for one year and paid a 10% commission.
Beard said she had planned to take the photographs to a sale she was hosting in a Florida gallery.
Baughman lost his life’s work and art collection from the water used to fight a fire at The Waverly, the former Harbour Club apartments, on May 24, 2021.
According to the criminal complaint, one of Baughman’s 20 photographs was “Human Pin Cushion, Maryland, 1961” by Diane Arbus, which Beard valued at $8,500.
The criminal complaint described four other victims, including an 89-year-old man with Alzheimer’s who, among other things, had his signed Ansel Adams photo returned with the signature gone; an 82-year-old who gave Beard $900,000 in fine-art photography to sell; a 70-year-old victim who placed a signed Ansel Adams book and three photographs with Beard and got the book back and a bad check for one photo for $4,000; and a 72-year-old victim who paid $73,000 for an Ansel Adams photograph and never got the photograph.
Baughman said when he was unable to get his photographs back from Beard, he went to the Belleville Police Department and they told him he needed to file with the Van Buren Township police, since he lived in the township. After being interviewed by Van Buren Township detectives, he said they recommended he file his complaint in Birmingham because that police department has more resources.
He said he and his sister, Mary Ann Bitner, drove to Birmingham to file the complaint and police said they received multiple complaints on Beard and it is being turned over to the FBI.
Baughman said on Monday, “As to those wheels of justice we all enjoy, I’m glad the system hasn’t completely frozen solid. Just a few days before this verdict was handed down on Sept. 11, I was finally notified that 18 out my original 20 vintage prints have been recovered. No date yet on when I can expect their return. No word on what might have happened to the remaining two, which were sentimentally among my favorites, and which totaled $8,000 in raw market value. No word on when or if I might get any of the settlement fund as compensation, even after they asked me to submit several rounds of crime victim impact statements.”
Baughman concluded: “Mark me down with a big, exasperated sigh…”