FBI investigates complaint by VBT resident, arrests suspect

Wendy Halsted Beard of Franklin, MI, was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Oct. 14 on two arrest warrants, one for wire fraud and one for mail fraud – and a Van Buren Township resident is one of the alleged victims.
Her preliminary examination was set for Nov. 4 and then was adjourned until Dec. 9 so the retained attorney she plans to hire will have time to review the evidence. She is free on $10,000 unsecured bond.
During the FBI’s investigation, over 100 rare photographs with a combined estimated value of about $1.6 million have been identified as being consigned to Beard and not returned or sold to victims without being delivered.
Bank records and other business records indicate there are likely to be more victims who have yet to be interviewed.
According to the criminal complaint filed by FBI Special Agent Julia MacBeth, there is probable cause to believe that Beard has executed a scheme to defraud by receiving valuable fine art photography prints on consignment, selling the artwork without the owner’s knowledge and keeping the proceeds of the sale for personal gain.
In addition, Beard has sold artwork to victims and after receiving payment never delivered the artwork to the purchaser. There is also probable cause to believe that interstate wire transactions and interstate mail services were used to execute the scheme to defraud.
She 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 is 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, 69, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist and college professor, 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.
Eighteen months after the consignment agreement ended, he said he has yet to get any money from the sale of the photos or to have them returned to him.
Baughman said he had great respect for Beard’s late father, Thomas Halsted, and so had no problem in dealing with Halsted’s daughter. Halstead established a gallery in Birmingham in 1969 and, according to the victims, was well-respected. He died in 2018.
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. This photo had originally been purchased by Baughman from Beard’s father in 1972.
After about six months, Beard became evasive about the photographs, according to the complaint, and Baughman contacted the gallery in Florida. He was provided contact information for Beard’s assistant, “Katy Welsh,” who he later learned does not exist.
Numerous victims told the FBI that Beard had told them she was going to take their artworks to her gallery in Florida to sell. The FBI investigated and found that Beard had rented space at Palm Beach Art in Lake Worth, FL in January 2021 for seven months. After the lease term had ended Beard left an inventory of 62 photographs and management of the showroom attempted to contact Beard to ask her to pick up her artwork.
An inventory list of 62 photographs was provided by the showroom to the FBI, which contained artwork belonging to identified victims, which was not returned to them after the period of consignment had ended. One of these photographs belonged to Baughman, “Human Pin Cushion.”
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.
Different victims told the FBI of Beard’s excuse for not returning their photographs was that she had been in a months-long coma and/or had a double-lung transplant. The dates were two different times within one year, according to two victims.
One coma report came on Sept. 1, 2022 and just two weeks prior, on Aug. 18, 2022, she was observed by the FBI, while on physical surveillance, to leave her residence and drive to a Detroit parking structure owned by the same company in which Beard’s bank account records show incoming payroll deposits since about January 2022. Beard did not appear to be physically impaired, the FBI report said.
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.
A joint investigation was conducted by the FBI Detroit Metropolitan Identity Theft and Financial Crimes Task Force and the Birmingham Police Department, with the assistance of the FBI Art Theft Unit, that showed Beard was executing a scheme to defraud beginning at least in 2017.
The criminal complaint noted that Beard’s victims are typically elderly individuals.