By the time Sun, a 34-year-old billionaire who founded the San Francisco-based Tron blockchain and its associated cryptocurrency, learned of the alleged trickery, the sculpture had been in Geffen’s New York home for nearly a year, according to the complaint.
Sun claims that after telling his adviser Sydney Xiong that he wished to sell “Le Nez,” she falsely represented her art market foundation APENFT as the owner of the piece, then forged his signature on sale documents, fabricated the identity of a lawyer who co-signed the deal, and arranged for the illicit transport of the piece to New York. The sculpture was sold to Geffen, a renowned art collector, through his intermediaries in exchange for $10.5 million in cryptocurrency and two paintings worth $55 million — far below Sun’s asking price of more than $80 million, the lawsuit says. Sun claims that Geffen and his team should have realized something was amiss with the deal.
Geffen, a producer and cofounder of the DreamWorks film studio, denies the claims and refuses to return the artwork. A spokesperson for his legal counsel told The Standard that Sun’s lawsuit is a “desperate and bizarre attempt to hide reality” and a ploy to rebound on an investment that fell flat.
“After trying and failing to sell the paintings, he now wants to retrade the deal based on the implausible claim that his own art advisor and liaison to the art world duped him,” the attorney said in a statement. “All indicators in Mr. Sun’s complaint point to seller’s remorse which is not a basis upon which to sue Mr. Geffen.”
