Robert Sher must go.
A small project to bring some light to a rather
nasty matter...
I won't be able to finish this project
in a single sitting, and I'll have to run a few of the things I have planned by
the lawyers, but I have come to a very simple conclusion after months of
thought.
In short, Robert Sher needs to have to answer for the things he has done and is doing. Every time I review in my head (and it is constant, let me tell you) the things that have brought me to where I am now, I constantly realize that the majority of this and the worst bits of that majority are all things that Robert Sher, President of Bentley Publishing Group, knows don't deserve to be this way.
Robert Sher made an art out of lying to his own family (and fellow owners of his business) and allowing things he must clearly understand to be one way to seem otherwise to whomever he needs to allow to be mislead. This includes the police department, who quickly saw right through his passive deception.
Robert Sher is also a bad businessman. I am in the process of determining just how much detail I can eventually put in this project, but I know I can make reference to what other people think of him. What they think of him isn't pretty. He is viewed in the art publishing industry as a goody-goody who puts his hand in everything for his own benefit. He is laughed at for all of his articles and side projects that are tilted up as if to protect artists and publishers, when the reality is that they are self serving attempts to put his name and face in front of the main players in the art world. The other publishers are quite well aware of this and they ridicule him for it.
Robert has also made Bentley Publishing Group into the "McDonalds" of the art publishing world. His drive to publish large volumes of art has surely not gone unnoticed, but the other publishers have noted that that high volume of art is all mediocre or even sub standard. This is what the other publishers in the art world have to say about it.
Robert has also become the guy who the rest of the art publishing world credits with trashing legitimate art publishing into "poster selling" or mass business. The days of a reasonable priced piece of art are going fast as Bentley Publishing Group races to lower prices to sell higher volumes of this previously mentioned dreck. It is a documentable phenomenon and the savvy art publishers have all noticed it.
Funny enough, the other art publishers have all wondered what in the world Larry Winn of Grand Image is doing with Bentley Publishing Group! Winn is famous for his standards and keen eye on what is hot and not in the art market. He deserves the title. (I had the good fortune of working with him briefly and he is the real deal) But, the rest of the art publishing industry is scratching its head wondering what on earth would put the king of quality and cutting edge publishing in bed with the king of mass produced, sub standard art. Why would the best slum with the worst? I'm not asking, I'm saying that people in the business are asking.
I don't feel comfortable yet in discussing some of the business blunders that Robert Sher has made and why I believe that his own board should remove him from control of Bentley Publishing Group. There are some good ones and I believe most of them are totally free game. But, until I have checked that with the lawyers, you won't find any of it here.
What I CAN discuss here is all about what Robert Sher is willing to do to protect himself and his own lies to his own family at my expense.
For starters, Robert Sher allowed or caused me to be arrested for something that I didn't do, allowed or caused me to be held in jail on $220,000 bail overnight until I was released and never charged for the things he told the police I did. He subsequently reported the same things to his insurance company that the police determined didn't merit charges against me. For whatever reason, that insurance company paid Mr. Sher and Bentley Publishing Group without so much as talking to me, or apparently the police.
Now, I am being sued by Bentley, probably through subrogation for the insurance company, for $200,000. What for? Yes, the same things that the police dropped investigating, that the insurance company never investigated, and that I didn't do. But, it gets better...
Robert Sher was approached by Candice Sher almost two years prior to this little episode about the exact same thing. Candice Sher (Sher-Betts) made the accusation that false receipts were being handed in and Robert responded by looking into our usage of media and determining that Candice Sher was, as he explained she always was, paranoid and nearly clinically so. Robert Sher knew then as he knows in this more recent case, that the materials billed were materials used by his own company. Why does he know? He knows because he always kept a keen eye on ALL transactions in production, but also because he checked into it the first time his sister brought it up.
Why was I buying the materials and being reimbursed? Oh, this is the question I never get tired of hearing. Furthermore, it is the one beautifully documented thing in all of my receipts and emails. Robert Sher was quite happy to have me hunting around for the best deals and dealing and wheeling to get cash discounts and bonus deliveries. He was all about saving the money and tracking down the most cash effective way to buy this heavily used product. He knew what was going on before, he knew the first time I was accused (and he defended me after his inquiry, and Candice was satisfied) and he knows now. But, he is willing to let that all go silent, let me be arrested, and let me be sued by an insurance company rather than simply confront his own problems with his family and business.
Robert Sher knew and was behind what I have since been arrested for doing. He encouraged it and encouraged me not to worry about any of the book keeping discrepancies. He benefitted from it (as did his family) and he made it part of my understood list of job duties. It went on for FOUR YEARS after all. Do you really think he let something as big as this just slide when he never misses a single other business trick? No, obviously not. He knew before and he knows now what was happening, but what changed is that his family put pressure on him and he didn't want to disclose his hand in it. It is about to come out in court though.
I'm hurt by so many other things that have happened since this all came down too. I had a good friend at Bentley who was the controller. I say "had" because I am relatively sure that Robert Sher's unwillingness to face the truth has led her to believe all sorts of things about me that are not true. I also know that she has been his "pen" in some of this legal stuff and it breaks my heart to read her accusations and determinations that I know are based on her own not-knowing the facts and truth about Robert's involvement and consent. I am saddened too because she was a good friend to me on many personal levels that I'm sure she has now written off as emotionally fraudulent. I know she was looking to leave Bentley because of her own fears and dissatisfactions with the company and her job, but I don't know if she is now locked in some similar wrestling match with Robert Sher. I mean, if he has decided to put the lawsuit threats to her by making her somehow complicit in all of this then she may not feel safe leaving or confronting the problems that had her looking for other work. I hope she gets the chance to leave so she can see what I have learned since I was taken out of the Bentley fold.
Oh, there is so much more. I want to write about the great things Robert Sher has done to try to ruin my life after Bentley. I want to include how far out of his way he is willing to go to try to keep me silent about the truth (which will not happen). He has tried to make my new employer think poorly of me (as to fire me?) and he has tried to tell me who I can and can't talk to. He has done it beyond the bounds of legal too.
This is what people who lie do...they try to silence those who will talk about the details. Why? I can tell you why. If I talk and describe things and enough people see my description and say, "wow, yeah, that's what I saw too" then suddenly the people who are all being misled or taken advantage of start to look at each other and realize that the one guy behind it is doing it on purpose. If they realize that they are all being had they can then collectively change things. I'm just going to lay it all out there...and I have no concern that these truths won't resonate with others who I hope will begin to ask their own questions...before they end up in jail or otherwise attacked preemptively.
As I started this I'll conclude...Robert Sher is a bad person. He really is. I didn't think it before and I didn't realize that much of what I credited to him is vulgar and distasteful if not down-right heinous. He is willing to endanger my family, my kids, my life simply to keep from coming clean with his family and business associates. He is willing to play out a lie that he clearly understands and has understood for YEARS. He has benefitted directly from the very thing that I am now being assaulted for...and by him! That is an evil person. His evil may be malicious or simply self serving, I don't know and I don't care to know. His own business problems seem to stem from his own ego and greed, and his means to attempt success seem to be whatever suits him whenever it suits him.
That, people, is a bad man.
Part Two: Insurance fraud? False Police reports? What do YOU think it would mean? I bet you already answered yourself...
(I'm speaking with two art-publishing trade magazines and one local consumer affairs reporter from television about these things and it looks like all three want to do something with this. If that doesn't speak volumes, I don't know what does.)
In short, Robert Sher needs to have to answer for the things he has done and is doing. Every time I review in my head (and it is constant, let me tell you) the things that have brought me to where I am now, I constantly realize that the majority of this and the worst bits of that majority are all things that Robert Sher, President of Bentley Publishing Group, knows don't deserve to be this way.
Robert Sher made an art out of lying to his own family (and fellow owners of his business) and allowing things he must clearly understand to be one way to seem otherwise to whomever he needs to allow to be mislead. This includes the police department, who quickly saw right through his passive deception.
Robert Sher is also a bad businessman. I am in the process of determining just how much detail I can eventually put in this project, but I know I can make reference to what other people think of him. What they think of him isn't pretty. He is viewed in the art publishing industry as a goody-goody who puts his hand in everything for his own benefit. He is laughed at for all of his articles and side projects that are tilted up as if to protect artists and publishers, when the reality is that they are self serving attempts to put his name and face in front of the main players in the art world. The other publishers are quite well aware of this and they ridicule him for it.
Robert has also made Bentley Publishing Group into the "McDonalds" of the art publishing world. His drive to publish large volumes of art has surely not gone unnoticed, but the other publishers have noted that that high volume of art is all mediocre or even sub standard. This is what the other publishers in the art world have to say about it.
Robert has also become the guy who the rest of the art publishing world credits with trashing legitimate art publishing into "poster selling" or mass business. The days of a reasonable priced piece of art are going fast as Bentley Publishing Group races to lower prices to sell higher volumes of this previously mentioned dreck. It is a documentable phenomenon and the savvy art publishers have all noticed it.
Funny enough, the other art publishers have all wondered what in the world Larry Winn of Grand Image is doing with Bentley Publishing Group! Winn is famous for his standards and keen eye on what is hot and not in the art market. He deserves the title. (I had the good fortune of working with him briefly and he is the real deal) But, the rest of the art publishing industry is scratching its head wondering what on earth would put the king of quality and cutting edge publishing in bed with the king of mass produced, sub standard art. Why would the best slum with the worst? I'm not asking, I'm saying that people in the business are asking.
I don't feel comfortable yet in discussing some of the business blunders that Robert Sher has made and why I believe that his own board should remove him from control of Bentley Publishing Group. There are some good ones and I believe most of them are totally free game. But, until I have checked that with the lawyers, you won't find any of it here.
What I CAN discuss here is all about what Robert Sher is willing to do to protect himself and his own lies to his own family at my expense.
For starters, Robert Sher allowed or caused me to be arrested for something that I didn't do, allowed or caused me to be held in jail on $220,000 bail overnight until I was released and never charged for the things he told the police I did. He subsequently reported the same things to his insurance company that the police determined didn't merit charges against me. For whatever reason, that insurance company paid Mr. Sher and Bentley Publishing Group without so much as talking to me, or apparently the police.
Now, I am being sued by Bentley, probably through subrogation for the insurance company, for $200,000. What for? Yes, the same things that the police dropped investigating, that the insurance company never investigated, and that I didn't do. But, it gets better...
Robert Sher was approached by Candice Sher almost two years prior to this little episode about the exact same thing. Candice Sher (Sher-Betts) made the accusation that false receipts were being handed in and Robert responded by looking into our usage of media and determining that Candice Sher was, as he explained she always was, paranoid and nearly clinically so. Robert Sher knew then as he knows in this more recent case, that the materials billed were materials used by his own company. Why does he know? He knows because he always kept a keen eye on ALL transactions in production, but also because he checked into it the first time his sister brought it up.
Why was I buying the materials and being reimbursed? Oh, this is the question I never get tired of hearing. Furthermore, it is the one beautifully documented thing in all of my receipts and emails. Robert Sher was quite happy to have me hunting around for the best deals and dealing and wheeling to get cash discounts and bonus deliveries. He was all about saving the money and tracking down the most cash effective way to buy this heavily used product. He knew what was going on before, he knew the first time I was accused (and he defended me after his inquiry, and Candice was satisfied) and he knows now. But, he is willing to let that all go silent, let me be arrested, and let me be sued by an insurance company rather than simply confront his own problems with his family and business.
Robert Sher knew and was behind what I have since been arrested for doing. He encouraged it and encouraged me not to worry about any of the book keeping discrepancies. He benefitted from it (as did his family) and he made it part of my understood list of job duties. It went on for FOUR YEARS after all. Do you really think he let something as big as this just slide when he never misses a single other business trick? No, obviously not. He knew before and he knows now what was happening, but what changed is that his family put pressure on him and he didn't want to disclose his hand in it. It is about to come out in court though.
I'm hurt by so many other things that have happened since this all came down too. I had a good friend at Bentley who was the controller. I say "had" because I am relatively sure that Robert Sher's unwillingness to face the truth has led her to believe all sorts of things about me that are not true. I also know that she has been his "pen" in some of this legal stuff and it breaks my heart to read her accusations and determinations that I know are based on her own not-knowing the facts and truth about Robert's involvement and consent. I am saddened too because she was a good friend to me on many personal levels that I'm sure she has now written off as emotionally fraudulent. I know she was looking to leave Bentley because of her own fears and dissatisfactions with the company and her job, but I don't know if she is now locked in some similar wrestling match with Robert Sher. I mean, if he has decided to put the lawsuit threats to her by making her somehow complicit in all of this then she may not feel safe leaving or confronting the problems that had her looking for other work. I hope she gets the chance to leave so she can see what I have learned since I was taken out of the Bentley fold.
Oh, there is so much more. I want to write about the great things Robert Sher has done to try to ruin my life after Bentley. I want to include how far out of his way he is willing to go to try to keep me silent about the truth (which will not happen). He has tried to make my new employer think poorly of me (as to fire me?) and he has tried to tell me who I can and can't talk to. He has done it beyond the bounds of legal too.
This is what people who lie do...they try to silence those who will talk about the details. Why? I can tell you why. If I talk and describe things and enough people see my description and say, "wow, yeah, that's what I saw too" then suddenly the people who are all being misled or taken advantage of start to look at each other and realize that the one guy behind it is doing it on purpose. If they realize that they are all being had they can then collectively change things. I'm just going to lay it all out there...and I have no concern that these truths won't resonate with others who I hope will begin to ask their own questions...before they end up in jail or otherwise attacked preemptively.
As I started this I'll conclude...Robert Sher is a bad person. He really is. I didn't think it before and I didn't realize that much of what I credited to him is vulgar and distasteful if not down-right heinous. He is willing to endanger my family, my kids, my life simply to keep from coming clean with his family and business associates. He is willing to play out a lie that he clearly understands and has understood for YEARS. He has benefitted directly from the very thing that I am now being assaulted for...and by him! That is an evil person. His evil may be malicious or simply self serving, I don't know and I don't care to know. His own business problems seem to stem from his own ego and greed, and his means to attempt success seem to be whatever suits him whenever it suits him.
That, people, is a bad man.
Part Two: Insurance fraud? False Police reports? What do YOU think it would mean? I bet you already answered yourself...
(I'm speaking with two art-publishing trade magazines and one local consumer affairs reporter from television about these things and it looks like all three want to do something with this. If that doesn't speak volumes, I don't know what does.)
Posted: Sat - February 12, 2005 at 10:05 AM
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Published On: Feb 12, 2005 10:10 AM
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Published On: Feb 12, 2005 10:10 AM