Stokes' Japanese art stash recovered

The art will be auctioned at some point to help recover some of the millions believed lost in 401(k) funds that 1Point's Stokes is accused of pilfering

Email | Print By Richard Lawson

10-27-2006 2:13 PM — Barry Stokes, the now-jailed impresario behind bankrupt employee benefits firm 1Point Solutions, may not have been just some run-of-the-mill amateur collector of Japanese woodblock prints. The money he is accused of pilfering from clients' retirement funds appears to have been used to buy more than 2,000 prints.

This week, at a hotel near the Austin, Texas airport, the bankruptcy trustee for 1Point Solutions and Stokes took possession of 1,088 such prints. That is on top of the 1,100 or so that had already been located in Dickson, John McLemore, the bankruptcy trustee, said. In addition to the prints, the trustee recovered 41 pieces of silver jewelry and a sport-utility vehicle in Austin.

With the prints in hand, the trustee now is in the art business. "If we are in the art market, we have to act like we are in the art market," McLemore said. Displays Unlimited, based in Arlington, Texas, is helping categorize the prints and prepare them for auction.

"We are hearing that the collection was insured for $2.5 million," McLemore said. "But you never get that value."

Still, the sale will be some progress in recovering a portion the millions missing from 401(k) funds 1Point and Stokes administered. McLemore said Stokes' two Dickson houses will be sold as well. The first creditors' meeting is scheduled for Nov. 15. McLemore said an audit is being completed, and the result will come in filings with the bankruptcy court.

It is unclear how long Stokes has been collecting the prints. But he has been doing it enough to gain a reputation in the field. "There are people in the big galleries who are familiar with Stokes," McLemore said. Early on, the trustee contacted many of the galleries to warn them about Stokes trying to sell the prints despite a federal court order in place to prevent him from doing so. It is believed that he tried to sell them.

Ukiyoe-Gallery in Kaiser, Ore., is one of the galleries familiar with Stokes. "He has bought a few prints from us," said Thomas Crossland, the gallery's owner. He said that a collection of more than 2,000 prints is a large one. "To accumulate that many, prints you'd have to go to many, many sources," Crossland said, adding that the large galleries indeed will know Stokes.

Crossland said it appears the Stokes was more interested in newer prints, ones created from the early part of the 20th Century forward, or from the Shin Hanga art movement in Japan. Values for prints in general range from $500 to $2,000 or $3,000. "Generally, prints rarely are more than $5,000," Crossland said.

He suggested that the sellers not dispose of the prints all at once. "You don't want to flood the market," he said.

Most of Stokes prints aren't framed but are stored in flat files. Some 600 framed prints were found in Dickson. McLemore said Stokes had a house in Dickson that was outfitted for archival storage with such features as humidity control and an alarm system. One of the responsibilities of one 1Point employee was handling the collection, McLemore said.

At one of the Oct. 13 hearings before Stokes was arrested on embezzlement charges, he had told the trustee that he didn't know where the prints were located. Stokes' wife, who lives in Austin handed over the goods. He appears to have carted two flat file cabinets around parts of the country in the back of his Yukon. "He went to the heart of the collection," McLemore said of the prints Stokes took.