“I’m energized,” he mentioned. “I feel like I’m on a blind date.”
He experienced nonetheless to meet up with his community defender in the flesh and experienced dressed up for the occasion, sporting a brown activity coat about a pink knitted vest and a novelty necktie emblazoned with cartoon breasts that he purchased at the adult retail outlet Demonstrate Entire world in Henrietta.
“I’m a boob,” he explained.
When the community defender arrived, he encouraged Haag to get rid of the necktie, indicating it was not acceptable for his visual appeal ahead of Rochester City Courtroom Judge Nicole Morris. The make any difference at hand was no laughing make any difference, but Haag experienced prepared for his little bit and was not about to let it go.
Haag, 37, an aspiring comic with dreams of reopening the outdated Monroe Theatre as a comedy club, was charged with tried grand larceny in the second diploma for allegedly hoping to steal an product from the Andy Warhol show at the Memorial Artwork Gallery back again in January. The demand is a felony that carries a optimum penalty of seven a long time in prison.
The product in problem was a portrait of Warhol shot by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe that is considered to be valued at $sixty,000.
When Morris identified as his identify, Haag walked into the courtroom, pulled the necktie out from beneath his vest and apologized for staying overdressed. The decide, who possibly by no means discovered the imprint on his tie or was indifferent to it, advised Haag he looked high-quality and that they most effective just get the clearly show on the highway.
The clearly show was to establish whether or not Haag would take a plea deal from Monroe County prosecutors to transfer his case to mental health court, a department of the justice program that supplies non-violent offenders dwelling with mental health issues with treatment as an choice to demo and potential incarceration.
Anyone associated, it appeared, required Haag to acquire the deal — even the aggrieved Memorial Artwork Gallery.
“MAG has no fascination in observing Mr. Haag go to jail for this offense,” the museum’s director, Jonathan Binstock, mentioned after the proceeding. “We do hope that he avails himself of the diversion from the criminal justice program to mental health court that has been provided.”
Haag would very likely qualify for mental health court. In an job interview in his Brighton condominium a couple months ahead of his court visual appeal, he mentioned he has been recommended medication for a identified mental health issues. At the similar time, he mentioned that he disputed his diagnosis and stopped getting medication much more than a 12 months in the past.
He advised his lawyer that he refused to go to mental health court, reasoning that he couldn’t be trusted to make the necessary regimen appearances to report on his progress.
Aside from, Haag insisted, he by no means experimented with to steal the portrait. He mentioned he just required to decide it up and that, when he did, he was impressed to transfer it.
“It’s amusing, I’ll be straightforward,” he mentioned, “I did assume about stealing it, but I made the decision not to, which is relevant for the reason that it is an intent difficulty.
“So, I flipped a coin for the reason that I’m a comic, it is exciting,” he went on. “It came up tails and I made tails, ‘I’ll decide it up off the wall,’ then, what do you know?”
But why did he decide it up of the wall?
“To decide it up off the wall,” he mentioned. “No, actually, just to feel what it felt like. Like, I have by no means accomplished that ahead of. Who does not want to decide up a piece of art off a wall of an art museum?”
Did he know he was not meant to do that?
“No,” he replied.
Connected: Individual charged in alleged attempt to steal Warhol show art
In his condominium that working day, Haag spoke at a swift clip, like a rapidly-conversing voiceover artist studying the legal disclaimer in a radio advert. He snacked on pastrami he introduced home from the meat marketplace down the street, the place he does odd employment a handful of hrs a week. The proprietor there mentioned he required to aid Haag make ends meet up with.
Haag grew up in Pittsford and gained bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University and graduate degrees in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of California.
Though in Los Angeles, he mentioned, he experimented with performing stand-up comedy and felt he was on to a little something. He place audiences in stitches, he mentioned, just like he recalled accomplishing to the deputies at the Monroe County Jail when he was arrested, and in court for the duration of his arraignment in February.
“Why do not ants get the COVID-19?” was how he mentioned he established up a person of his most effective jokes for the officers. The punchline: “They acquired tiny antibodies.”
“I’m joking about with these guys and all the cops powering me are sniggering for the reason that I’m acquiring exciting with this,” Haag recalled of his arraignment.
Immediately after his foray into stand-up on the West Coastline, Haag returned to New York and taught for a though at faculties in Rochester and in the North Region, but he mentioned he was not able to hold on to these employment.
In recent a long time, Haag mentioned, he’s been dividing his time involving the meat marketplace, accomplishing stand-up at open up mics, operating on having his comedy club enterprise off the ground, and attending classes at Strong Ties Group Support Clinic, an outpatient clinic of the University of Rochester Health care Center for older people with intense and persistent mental health issues.
When Haag walked into the Memorial Artwork Gallery on Jan. 31, the working day of the alleged tried theft, he was not a stranger to the spot.
A handful of a long time previously, Haag was integral to a celebrated film installation at the museum by the artist Javier Téllez that concentrated on cinema and mental health issues. Haag and other folks dwelling with mental health issues in the Rochester spot collaborated with Téllez by means of a sequence of workshops, aiding him produce the script and starring in the film.
When the instillation opened, the museum threw a occasion for the participants that Haag attended. The film, “Nosferatu (The Undead),” has because been screened all about the entire world.
Haag mentioned he by no means paid to enter the museum the working day he took the Mapplethorpe portrait of Warhol off the wall.
“I experienced this amazing inventive instant, the place I have no strategy what I’m heading to do,” Haag mentioned. “It was terrific. I’m sitting right here with Warhol in my palms. So I stroll throughout the place.”
He estimated that he was about a hundred feet away from the closest exit when he entered a aspect of the show fashioned like a dwelling place that performed Warhol tv appearances.
“I see this Andy Warhol Tv set place and I’m wondering, that is so best,” he mentioned. “Just then, a docent walks by me and I held the photo up to him and mentioned, ‘Hey appear, a Mapplethorpe!’ . . . So I place it down on the ground in the frame leaned up from the Andy Warhol Tv set place.”
He mentioned he then walked to the primary entrance of the museum, advised a further official that he considered the Mapplethorpe portrait looked better on the flooring, and walked out.
“I was not functioning,” he mentioned. “I just walked out when I was accomplished. . . . Took them a week and a 50 percent to locate me.”
The Memorial Artwork Gallery produced a statement on Feb. 10 asserting that a particular person experienced been arrested and charged in link with an attempt to steal a get the job done of art. The statement recommended that the would-be thief only acquired a handful of actions ahead of he encountered a museum stability ambassador, who secured the art and alerted law enforcement.
Haag advised law enforcement in a statement that he “just required to make folks laugh” and that he considered “Warhol would appear better somewhere else.”
In court, after apologizing for staying overdressed, Haag complained of staying sizzling and took off his activity coat and vest to reveal a hand-prepared advertisement for his comedy club strategy on a piece of paper taped to his back again.
The decide advised Haag to place his jacket back again on. He complied, but not ahead of he tugged his necktie absolutely free and tossed it into the air. Immediately after that, the decide recommended she would shut down the clearly show right up until Haag could get his act collectively.
Then, the community defender interjected.
“We won’t be capable to solve this make any difference currently,” he mentioned, outlining that Haag did not want to go to mental health court and that he was prepared for his case to go ahead of a grand jury and, from there, possibly to demo.
The decide agreed and adjourned the make any difference.
Haag picked up his tie off the courtroom flooring, gathered a handful of stray items he experienced remaining in the gallery, and exited indicating, “That’s a clearly show.”
David Andreatta is CITY’s editor. He can be reached at [email protected].
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