It is the sculptor Richard Minns whose middle initial is L, good grief.
The reason he ultimately won the lawsuit is that he fled the country when it was brought and stayed out. His claim that he couldn’t attend court because of a medical condition is ridiculous.
Barbara, the victim, was not rich. I doubt she could afford to continue fighting. Both the criminal and civil aspect was a travesty of justice.
This was a cold blooded murder-for-hire and Minns got away with it. Read more about it than the link you posted.
ADDED: Search on
richard minns ayn rand
and read him saying at an exhibition of his “Atlas Shrugged” sculptures in London that he is an Ayn Rand hero. It is beyond disgusting.
Dudley Bell of Houston and Robert Jess Anderson of Spring were convicted of hiring the men who shot Piotrowski and sentenced to 38 years in prison. Two California men – Nathaniel Ivery and Patrick Tony Steen – were convicted of carrying out the plot and received 35-year sentences.
It’s true that Ivery (the trigger man) and Steen (the get away driver) were convicted and sent to prison. As was Robert Anderson who hired them. As was Dudley Bell who hired HIM.
And Richard Minns hired Bell. He was the “prime mover,” the man who pulled the trigger on the process that ended with four bullets in Barbara’s back.
During the entire investigation the police left him completely alone.
Then this is not the venue for making such a case. Present your findings via the proper channels. There is no statute of limitation on murder. I don’t know of a statute of limitations exists for attempted murder.
It is the sculptor Richard Minns whose middle initial is L, good grief.
Right, why do you think I said nevermind? At first I thought they were different people because nothing I saw mentioned his sculpting. The initial seemed to differentiate them. But once I looked up that court stuff, the same initial was used. So, yeah. It’s kind of like a Roman Polanski situation, or OJ. He fled the country. The ruling on the case I linked isn’t my point, because I don’t think it says anything about guilt in the matter.
29 minutes ago, dream_weaver said:
Was Richard Minns charged with Barbra Piotowski’s attempted murder?
Doesn’t have much to do with Barney’s character though, or ARI, that would be speculation. I wouldn’t be surprised though if Minns just knows how to scam fans of Rand really easily. Something like Donald Trump - a slippery liar who can commit and hide crimes or major moral transgressions and simultaneously claim to be a victim.
Richard Mimms presents himself as, and some people in Objectivist circles have called him, an “Objectivist sculptor.” His history should be of interest to people interested in Objectivism.
Correct, there is no statute of limitation on murder. But now Minns is 90 or pushing 90. He got away with it as much as matters.
That the HPD didn’t touch him speaks to the corruption in the HPD. Read the two court case links in my last post. Even the judges thought the HPD was corrupt.
From the first:
“The State’s evidence shows that, in July, 1980, appellant [Bell] asked at least two people to kill complainant [Barbara] at the behest of Minns.”
From the second:
“This is a disturbing case-both in terms of what happened to Piotrowski and how members of the Houston Police Department (“HPD”) conducted themselves before and after the shooting. Piotrowski was shot and rendered a paraplegic by a hit man procured by her ex-boyfriend, Richard Minns. The evidence connected members of the Houston police and fire departments to Minns and his hired investigator Dudley Bell in acts that harassed and threatened Piotrowski before the shooting.”
An acquaintance who lived in the Houston area at the time said the hit and the aftermath was big news throughout the entire state of Texas. (Minns was quite well known because of his health spa business.)
Some people in each of ARI, TOS, and TAS have at one time or another promoted Minns. They have no excuse for not knowing his history. Everybody looks up people on the Internet. Some of them must have found out, and the case is so horrendous they would have told the others about it.
Anyway, if they are reading this discussion they know now.
Richard Mimms [sic] presents himself as, and some people in Objectivist circles have called him, an “Objectivist sculptor.” His history should be of interest to people interested in Objectivism.
I guess I don’t know what an “Objectivist sculptor” is. Also, if Objectivism is what is of interest to me, there are better venues to pursue than studying Richard Minns history.
Minns isn’t an Objectivist. He’s a religious fan of Ayn Rand. The TAS CEO who interviewed him in London called him an “Objectivist sculptor,” most likely because she was trying to get more of his money. (It’s quite disgusting what some of these money-chasers will do in order to retain big donors like Barney and Minns.) I don’t see where Minns claims to be an Objectivist–though it wouldn’t surprise me. He claims to be a lot of things. But he says his art is influenced by the Old Masters, and the majority of his subject matter is inspired by Greek and Jewish mythology.
Something like Donald Trump - a slippery liar who can commit and hide crimes or major moral transgressions and simultaneously claim to be a victim.
Funny how no one can ever seem to prove these crimes or major moral transgressions. If the reason they are never proven is that they never happened then he is justified in claiming to be the target of a witch hunt. Given the intense scrutiny he now lives under and the annual IRS audits he has had for years given the complexity and large sums involved in his annual tax filings, it seems like a conspiracy theory to presume Trump is getting away with anything at all.
I fail to see why I should care about him. He was a Scientologist. Who cares.
17 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:
most likely because she was trying to get more of his money.
I don’t see why that is more likely. It isn’t a parsimonious theory, it requires many variables being just right, especially variables we don’t know anything about and can’t know anything about. Going off the information available, Minns manipulates people. I could easily make him sound like a Roarkian hero hated for his virtue. And I think fans of Rand often have bias a to think that whatever thinking method that they use is rational in all fields of thought. Pretty good marks if you ask me.
1 minute ago, Grames said:
Funny how no one can ever seem to prove these crimes or major moral transgressions.
I’m referring to the nature of telling a good narrative (it’s a common phenomena where people will ignore moral failings even in the story that the person tells, because the story sounds so damn cool). “Slippery” as a way to describe a person who deliberately skirts moral norms of all sorts, and knows enough about psychology and rhetoric that destabilize your notion of what is a fact and what is an exaggeration. “No one can seem to prove” is not a valid objection, because that can easily be due to a failure creativity. For example, people and organize crime manage to avoid prosecution, that is, until people get creative in how they acquire information.. I mentioned Donald Trump specifically because Dupin likes Trump, and he wouldn’t see the irony of hating on Minns. I think it had the effect I wanted.
Must we always remain skeptical of the character of a person because of unproven claims? Minns passes a threshold of bad character for me because of a number of associations and connections. Especially the hired hitmen. He fled the country, he was arrested for fraud.
Must we always remain skeptical of the character of a person because of unproven claims?
Well, yes. Otherwise you are partaking in gossip.
Quote
Minns passes a threshold of bad character for me because of a number of associations and connections. Especially the hired hitmen. He fled the country, he was arrested for fraud.
The hiring of hitmen, fleeing the country and the fraud arrest are reliable facts (as far as I have followed this thread). That counts as evidence and therefore some degree of proof exists toward a negative evaluation. Is there anything even remotely approaching that degree of criminality in Trump’s life?
I fail to see why I should care about [Barney]. He was a Scientologist. Who cares.
Have you read the article at ARI Watch? I think it answers your concern.
2 hours ago, Eiuol said:
3 hours ago, MisterSwig said:
most likely because she was trying to get more of [Minns’] money.
I don’t see why that is more likely. It isn’t a parsimonious theory, it requires many variables being just right, especially variables we don’t know anything about and can’t know anything about.
Not many variables actually. ARI was making moves on Minns by co-hosting an event at his London gallery exhibit in 2014 and then using his sculpture as the Atlas Israeli Start-up Award starting in spring of 2016. New TAS leader, Grossman, then does what she can, visiting him in London in the fall of 2016 and then basically penning a love letter to her real life Greek god.
Good grief. I’m sure it was love at first sight (of his riches). I wonder what happened to make her ultimately remove the interview from the TAS website and turn passive-aggressive in an article the following spring.
Minns passes a threshold of bad character for me because of a number of associations and connections. Especially the hired hitmen. He fled the country, he was arrested for fraud.
He also pleaded the Fifth fifty-one times when Piotrowski’s lawyer tried to take his deposition in 1984 while he was serving time in Federal prison. A judge cited him for contempt, but the Feds were then allowed to deport him after he renounced his US citizenship. It seems that the criminal case against him relied upon his PI friend spilling the beans–and that didn’t happen. That would have required the PI to admit to a murder conspiracy. By keeping his mouth shut, he received a relatively light sentence.
I’m not sure what an Objectivist sculptor is either but that’s what the TAS CEO called Minns.
When I wrote “his history should be of interest to people interested in Objectivism” I should have said “the Objectvist movement.” The murder-for-hire and Minns’ subsequent history is a disaster from a propaganda point of view, that is, the spread of Rand’s ideas.
Eiuol,
If you investigate this affair I don’t think you would say Minns “skirts moral norms.” He hired a hit man who pumped four .44 caliber rounds into Barabara Piotrowski’s back. Who or what has pretty good marks?
Apparently Minns sees himself as a Roarkian hero hated for his virtue. I don’t see the point in trying to enter into his self-deception.
MisterSwig,
Where did you unearth the “Artist as Atlas” article? I’d very much like to have a link.
Minns claims to be an Objectivist and even boasts that he is a Rand hero. See for example (bracketing the dot in dot com so as not to increase the search ranking):
hayhillgallery[.]com/minns/atlas3.htm
hayhillgallery[.]com/minns/atlas1.htm
artlyst[.]com/whats-on-archive/richard-minns-meet-the-artist-evening-hay-hill-gallery
When I wrote “his history should be of interest to people interested in Objectivism” I should have said “the Objectvist [sic] movement.”
Is the “Objectivist movement” where the “Objectivist sculptor’s” hang out? Or is an “Objectivist movement” more like a Swissmovement using a quartz mechanism?
Ever since Rand wrote The Fountainhead her defenders have had to deal with people claiming that she advocated “walking over and stomping on anybody you don’t like” – something along those lines. And now ARI, TOS, TAS promote someone who does just that, and who claims Rand had a “profound influence” on his life, and who calls himself an “Ayn Rand archetype” – see any of the three links at the end of my last post.
Minns claims to be an Objectivist and even boasts that he is a Rand hero.
You’ll have to quote the passage where he claims to be an Objectivist. I’ve reviewed the pages. He’s a little clever and sneaky with his phrasing. For example, Objectivism “had a profound influence on [his] early life.” In 1957, at age 26, he “had already become an Ayn Rand archetype” (before Atlas Shrugged was even published). And now, as an old man, he’s an “exponent of Ayn Rand’s Individualism.” The best part, however, has to be this line: “One could say that Richard’s Atlas is really Howard Roark and that Howard Roark is actually Richard Minns.” Whoa, that must make Richard Atlas! But note that he doesn’t actually claim to be an Objectivist.
