Sagen om et lukket seksuelt underverden, en henrettet ung mand og en kunsthandler der slap fri
Andrew Crispo was, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, one of the most glittering figures in New York's art world inner circle. His gallery on 57th Street sold works worth millions of dollars and drew society's elite — celebrated collectors and the leading figures of culture. But beneath the polished surface was a man driven by a destructive need for control, humiliation and violence, and in February 1985 that double life exploded in a case that would come to define an entire era's collision between wealth, decadence and criminal law.
Who was Andrew Crispo?
Crispo grew up in modest circumstances in Philadelphia and established himself as a self-taught art expert with an almost mythological ability to charm the wealthy and the celebrated. He opened the Andrew Crispo Gallery in 1973 and quickly earned recognition for his eye for American and European modernists. The gallery became a gathering point for New York's elite, and Crispo moved freely in circles that were normally closed to anyone without an aristocratic background or academic credentials.
Andrew Crispo Gallery åbner
Crispo etablerer sit galleri på 57th Street i Manhattan og opbygger hurtigt et navn i kunstverdenens elite.
Eigil Dag Vestis lig fundet
Den 26-årige norske modestuderende findes skudt og iført en lædermaske i skov i Rockland County nord for New York.
Bernard LeGeros sigtet og erkender
LeGeros, der arbejdede for Crispo, erkender at have skudt Vesti og udpeger Crispo som orchestrator bag forbrydelsen.
LeGeros idømt 25 år til livstid
Retten finder Bernard LeGeros skyldig i mord i første grad og idømmer ham 25 år til livstid.
Andrew Crispo Gallery lukker
Galleriet lukker permanent under presset fra den offentlige skandale og myndighedernes efterforskning af Crispos økonomi.
Crispo erkender sig skyldig i skatteunddragelse
Anklagemyndigheden lykkes ikke med en drabstiltale, men Crispo erklærer sig skyldig i omfattende skattesvindel og idømmes syv års fængsel.
Crispo løslades fra fængsel
Andrew Crispo afsoner dele af sin dom og løslades i begyndelsen af 1990'erne. Han vender aldrig tilbage til kunstverdenens toppen.
Behind the scenes, however, Crispo was known in certain circles for a passion for sadomasochistic sexual escapades involving humiliation, dominance and, with increasing frequency, violence. He surrounded himself with younger, vulnerable men whom he bound to him through money, drugs and psychological manipulation.
The murder of Eigil Dag Vesti
On 19 February 1985, the body of 26-year-old Norwegian fashion student Eigil Dag Vesti was found in a woodland area in Rockland County, north of New York. He was wearing a leather mask, and the autopsy determined that he had been shot at close range. The mask gave the case its media name: The Mask Murder.
Investigators quickly traced the case to Bernard LeGeros, a 22-year-old from a wealthy family who worked for Crispo. LeGeros admitted to shooting Vesti — but stated that it happened during a sadomasochistic scenario that Crispo had allegedly arranged and directed. According to LeGeros, Crispo was himself present during parts of the sequence of events and had urged him to pull the trigger as part of a sexual power game.
Crispo denied any knowledge of the murder and maintained that he had not been present at all. Prosecutors faced a classic word-against-word situation, and the evidence against Crispo personally was ultimately insufficient to support a homicide charge.
The trial of LeGeros