Last August, the OMA sued De Groft and the owners of a series of paintings included in the scandal-ridden 2022 show “Heroes & Monsters: Jean-Michel Basquiat.” The museum alleged that De Groft and others used the show and the museum’s reputation to legitimize a group of 25 paintings they claimed were by Basquiat so that they could be sold after. However, the show was shuttered in June 2022 after several reports doubting their status as bonafide Basquiats, which culminated in the FBI seizing the paintings. A subsequent FBI investigation provided evidence that the works were not by Basquiat, with Los Angeles-based auctioneer Michael Barzman admitting in a plea deal to helping paint and sell the works himself.

The case figures to be a complicated one. Akerman LLP, the law firm representing the museum, said in the case-management report that it expects to depose 50 “art scholars and museum directors” for the case. Further, a representative for the firm told the Sentinel that the lawsuit could cost the museum $500,000. That’s in addition to the more than $100,000 OMA has already paid Akerman since June 2022, according to the Sentinel, when the FBI raided the museum and seized the allegedly phony paintings.

Further delay in the suit could be caused by a series of countersuits against the OMA. DeGroft filed a countersuit against the OMA in November claiming wrongful termination, breach of contract, and defamation. In the countersuit, DeGroft claimed he is being made a scapegoat as part of the OMA’s media strategy for dealing with the scandal. He alleged that Cynthia Brumback, the OMA’s former board chair who resigned in the wake of the Basquiat scandal, and an outside legal team, had approved of the exhibition, even after it was clear the FBI, which subpoenaed the OMA for records regarding the paintings a year before they were seized, was investigating claims of forgery.

Additional countersuits for defamation are expected from defendants in the case, including the group of artworks’ owners called the Basquiat Venice Collection Group/ who claim “that the value of the Basquiat works of art has been tremendously devalued by OMA’s statements to various outlets, including but not limited to the filing of this lawsuit,” according to the court documents. 

De Groft and the owners of the supposed Basquiats have denied wrongdoing and maintain that the pieces are real.

There have been reports that mediation and a settlement could resolve the dispute between museum and DeGroft, though, according to court documents, “certain parties” have entered into negotiations and “appear to be far from settlement,” however they have agreed to a neutral mediator.

Per the Associated Press, De Groft filed court papers in Orlando, Florida, on Tuesday that claimed the former board chairwoman of the Orlando Museum of Art, Cynthia Brumback, and outside legal team for the museum had greenlit the exhibition, even after being dealt an FBI subpoena in July 2021 for any museum records related to the paintings. The show, titled “Heroes & Monsters: Jean-Michel Basquiat”, opened in early 2022, but closed abruptly that June following an FBI raid of the premises.

De Groft claims that he is being positioned as a scapegoat for the considerable fallout of the headline-grabbing raid, in which all 25 purported Basquiat paintings were seized. Further, he has claimed that the museum’s lawsuit against him is a public relations strategy. According to the court filings, the outside attorneys told De Groft and Brumback that the museum would not be jeopardized by cancelling the show. 

“These two statements fortified Defendant’s belief that the 25 paintings were authentic Basquiats,” De Groft wrote, as quoted by AP.

He is seeking over $50,000 for wrongful termination, defamation, and breach of contract.

In August, the museum filed a fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and conspiracy lawsuit against De Groft and the group who collectively owned a series of paintings contentiously attributed to Basquiat, claiming it suffered a severe financial and reputation hit due to their actions. The suit claims that De Groft leveraged the museum’s reputation to legitimize and increase the value of the fake paintings for a later profit. The museum has not specified the sum in damages it is seeking. 

The museum’s lawsuit “seeks to hold responsible the people the museum believes knowingly misrepresented the works’ authenticity and provenance,” said the museum’s current board chair, Mark Elliott, in a statement.

De Groft and the paintings’ owners introduced the works to the public in February of 2022, saying that they were created around 1982 by Basquiat while he lived and worked in Los Angeles. According to their story, the works were sold directly to a private collector, who forgot them in a storage unit for decades. The FBI affidavit, however, provided evidence to the contrary and, in a plea deal earlier this year, Los Angeles auctioneer Michael Barzman admitted to making the fake Basquiat paintings. O’Donnell and De Groft maintain that Barzman lied in his plea deal to avoid jail time.

Earlier this week, the Orlando Sentinel reported that the museum and defendants were negotiating a potential settlement in its case against the defendants. The court filing indicated that the museum will not pursue a jury trial if a settlement can be reached. 

ARTnews has reached out to both parties for comment, but has yet to recieve a response.

According to the filing with the Orange County circuit court, in August the museum sued De Groft and the group who collectively owned a series of paintings contentiously attributed to the late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. The museum has alleged that the two parties leveraged the show to lend legitimacy to the works so they could be sold afterwards, despite well-publicized doubts to their attribution. De Groft has been accused of working out a deal to pocket a cut if the works found buyers. 

De Groft and defendant Pierce O’Donnell, a Los Angeles-based lawyer, have not yet filed a formal response to the lawsuit. In the latest court filing, the museum states that it had allowed the defendants more time to file a response because several individuals, including De Groft, were still seeking Florida legal counsel. Last week, the museum and the defendants petitioned for a postponement of the pre-trial conference with the case’s presiding judge, Judge John E. Jordan, originally scheduled for Tuesday; the postponement was granted.

De Groft and the owners of the supposed Basquiats have denied wrongdoing and maintain that the pieces are real.

In its lawsuit, the museum has claimed significant financial and reputation damage due to its hosting of the 2022 show “Heroes & Monsters”, which was shuttered early in June that year when FBI agents seized its contents—25 paintings attributed to Basquiat—from the premises in view of visitors. De Groft was ousted by the board of trustees only four days after the raid. 

De Groft and the paintings’ owners unveiled the paintings to the public in February of 2022, claiming that the works were created around 1982 by Basquiat while he lived and worked in the Los Angeles residence of dealer Larry Gagosian. Per their story, the works were sold without Gagosian’s knowledge to a private collector, who forgot them in a storage unit for decades. An FBI affidavit provided evidence to the contrary, including an interview with the purported original owner of the paintings who swore he had never patronized the famed artist.  

Additionally, California auctioneer Michael Barzman admitted in a plea deal earlier this year to working with a partner—identified only as “J.F.”in the court filings— to create and market the paintings.

“J.F. spent a maximum of 30 minutes on each image and as little as five minutes on others, and then gave them to [Barzman] to sell on eBay,” reads the plea agreement. “[Barzman] and J.F. agreed to split the money that they made from selling the Fraudulent Paintings. J.F. and [Barzman] created approximately 20-30 artworks by using various art materials to create colorful images on cardboard.”

O’Donnell and De Groft maintain that Barzman lied in his plea deal to avoid jailtime; he received probation and a fine at his sentencing.

The most recent court filing indicates that the museum will not pursue a jury trial if a settlement can be reached. In explaining his reason for granting the postponement of the trial, the judge stated: “The parties are currently engaged in settlement negotiations, the outcome of which has the potential to dispose of further litigation proceedings.”

Neither the museum nor De Groft and O’Donnell responded to a request for comment at press time.

The case was related to the saga surrounding a 2022 exhibition about Basquiat held at the Orlando Museum of Art in Florida. That show touched off an FBI raid, the firing of the museum’s director, and legal action that is still ongoing.

Included in the show were a group of works that the museum’s director at the time, Aaron De Groft, claimed had been produced in 1982 while the artist lived in Los Angeles. He said that after that, they were left in a storage unit, then forgotten. De Groft claimed they were major rediscoveries.

But doubt started to emerge after the New York Times ran an investigation that questioned these works’ authenticity. One expert on branding seized on the FedEx typeface that appeared in one of these paintings. He said the shipping company hadn’t started to use that typeface until 1994, more than a decade after these works were allegedly produced.

After the FBI investigated the 25 paintings, seizing them in a dramatic raid that made headlines around the world, Michael Barzman, the auctioneer who today was sentenced to probation, was interviewed by federal agents. Speaking to them in 2022, he claimed he had no role in the production of the works.

Then, in 2023, he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about this, further saying that he had built out a false provenance for the paintings. That provenance was intended to act as documentation for the storage unit narrative. De Groft, along with two co-owners of the paintings, has stated that Barzman is not telling the truth.

LA prosecutors had been seeking the sentence Barzman ultimately received. According to the New York Times, which first reported the news, Barzman “had a difficult life, physically and emotionally,” and suffered from “substance abuse and financial difficulties.”

His sentence involves three years of probation, 500 hours of community service, and a fine of $500. Barzman’s lawyer told the Times that the auctioneer is “never going to reoffend.”

Meanwhile, the investigation into the faked Basquiats continues—as does the legal intrigue. Earlier this week, the Orlando Museum of Art sued De Groft, whom it fired not long after the FBI raid in the summer of 2022. The museum alleges that De Groft had made efforts to profit from putting the Basquiats in the exhibition and that he was attempting to do something similar with paintings by Titian and Jackson Pollock that were not in the show. He has denied wrongdoing.

The Headlines

A NEW LEGAL FRONT. In the New York Times, Brett Sokol and Matt Stevens report that the Orlando Museum of Art has slapped its former (ousted) director, Aaron De Groft, with a lawsuit alleging he had worked out a deal to pocket a cut if disputed Jean-Michel Basquiats shown at the museum in 2022 found buyers. The F.B.I. has been investigating those works, and an auctioneer admitted in a plea deal earlier this year that he actually helped to create the possible forgeries. De Groft and the owners of the so-called Basquiats, who were also named in the suit, have denied wrongdoing and maintain that the pieces are real. The former OMA leader told the Times that he had only talked to the owners about steering a gift to the museum. The OMA has not yet specified damages it is seeking for what it says amounted to fraud, conspiracy, and more.

THE NEW NORMAL. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is joining the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the $30 ticket club, Sam Whiting reports in Datebook, hiking its general admission price from $25. That price had been in effect since the unveiling of its 2016 expansion. Those between 19 and 24 will have to pay $23, and seniors $25. Visitors under 18 are free. The new pricing structure takes effect on October 14, the day SFMOMA opens a major Yayoi Kusama show. That said, you can pay $30 now by selecting the ticket that also offers access to Ragnar Kjartansson’s video masterpiece The Visitors (2012).

The Digest

Philanthropist Joan Kaplan Davidson, a former chairwoman of the New York State Council on the Arts who helped start Westbeth Artists Housing in Manhattan while working at the National Endowment for the Arts, died on Friday at 96. [The New York Times]

It took a year of negotiations, but more than 500 workers at the Art Institute of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago have approved a contract that will see them get raises between 12.25 and 16.25 percent. The minimum wage there will now be $17 an hour. [The Art Newspaper]

Mitra Abbaspour was named curator of modern and contemporary art at the Harvard Art Museums. She is coming from the Princeton University Art Museum, where she holds the same title. At Harvard, she will also oversee that department, whose purview—fun fact—is art from 1901 to the present. [The Harvard Gazette]

Artist and art dealer John Riepenhoff, who co-owns the Green Gallery in Milwaukee, was named executive director of Sculpture Milwaukee, the annual outdoor art show in Cream City. He is also the curator of its current edition, which runs through next October. [Press Release]

A retired political science professor, Lawrence Gray, 79, was arraigned in Manhattan on charges that he stole luxurious jewelry while moving in the upper echelons of East Coast society, selling some through a Manhattan auction house. “He didn’t do it,” his lawyer said. [New York Post]

Claire Armitstead penned an essay about hidden, “deliberately obscure” art. It “isn’t sellable or even necessarily classifiable as art, but it has an energy and an integrity that touch you if you’re lucky enough to find it,” Armitstead writes. [The Guardian]

The Kicker

TOURISTS BEHAVING BADLY. A video is making the rounds that shows a woman climbing onto Rome’s beloved Trevi Fountain and . . . wait for it . . .  filling up a water bottle, Insider reports. The video was shot last month, and it is not clear what became of her after being confronted by a guard. The viral footage comes after a spate of incidents in Italy that have seen people behaving inappropriately at important monuments—carving into the stone of the Colosseum, for instance. When a man swam in the Trevi Fountain last month, a city official declared it “pure barbarism.” [Insider]

The Florida institution has fought to regain its credibility after a police investigation determined the dozens of paintings were forgeries and had been exhibited despite doubts to their authenticity. Only last week, a former auctioneer admitted to helping create and sell the works.

“I am honored to accept this position and look forward to working with the staff and board to continue building on the strong legacy of the Museum,” Mattson said in a statement shared by the OMA. “A major art museum is essential to a vibrant city, as it is a place where the community can come together, grow, create, and share experiences that inspire and bring joy. I am delighted to be able to serve this wonderful institution.”

Mattson joins the museum after a series of leadership shakeups. The former museum director, Aaron De Groft, was fired in June 2022 by the OMA board of trustees just days after the FBI raid. A FBI affidavit revealed that the works had been at the center of a nine-year-long investigation into their authenticity, and that the museum had been served a subpoena prior to the opening of the exhibition “Heroes & Monsters” in February 2022. Several former trustees later claimed that De Groft and the former board chair, Cynthia Brumback, withheld knowledge of the subpoena.

De Groft was replaced by interim director Luder Whitlock. However, Whitlock resigned after less than two months on the job, and two days after his departure, the board replaced Brumback as chair. In March of this year, the longtime chief curator of the Orlando Museum of Art, Hansen Mulford, quietly retired after 42 years without fanfare or even advance notice to staff, according to local press.

Since the FBI raid, the museum has launched several initiatives to reestablish its trust with the Orlando community. The board of trustees commissioned the Orlando-based Akerman law firm to investigate the Basquiat scandal and has been receiving recommendations based on the results of the probe for months.

In an interview this past September, current board president Mark Elliott told the Orlando Sentinel that the investigation’s findings would be made public, however to date, no information has been shared.

Michael Barzman, 45, from Hollywood, California, has been charged with making false statements to authorities about the provenance of the works, which ignited a headline-grabbing scandal when they were confiscated from the OMA in view of curious museumgoers. The works were on display in the show “Heroes & Monsters: Jean-Michel Basquiat” that opened in February 2022.

The court filings detail how Barzman and a second man—identified only as “J.F.”—painted the fake Basquiats in 2012. 

“J.F. spent a maximum of 30 minutes on each image and as little as five minutes on others, and then gave them to [Barzman] to sell on eBay,” reads the plea agreement. “[Barzman] and J.F. agreed to split the money that they made from selling the Fraudulent Paintings. J.F. and [Barzman] created approximately 20-30 artworks by using various art materials to create colorful images on cardboard.”

Barzman, who formerly ran an auction business that specialized in reselling objects from unpaid storage units, also admitted that he faked a notarized provenance—a history of ownership of an artwork—that claimed the forgeries had been discovered in a storage unit after its purported owner, an LA-based screenwriter, failed to pay rent. The fraudulent works were sold at auction and eventually travelled to the OMA, where they were the centerpiece of the Basquiat exhibition.

A series of swift shakeups at the museum followed the raid, starting with the former museum director Aaron De Groft, who was ousted by the board of trustees only four days after the raid. De Groft unveiled the paintings to the public in February and vehemently defended them amid mounting challenges to their credibility. De Groft and the paintings’ owners claimed the works were created around 1982 by Basquiat while he was living and working in Los Angeles and had been forgotten in the storage unit. The FBI affidavit provided evidence to the contrary, including an interview with the purported original owner of the paintings who swore he had never patronized the famed artist.  

The board has since replaced its chair, Cynthia Brumback, who has faced considerable criticism from the community for her failure to avert the scandal. Several former trustees dismissed in April told Orlando press that Brumback withheld the fact that a FBI subpoena was sent to OMA on July 27, 2021—almost seven months before the exhibition opened—demanding “any and all” communications among the museum’s staff, board, and the owners of the paintings.

In August 2022, special agents of the FBI’s art crime unit questioned Barzman.

“At the time of the interview, [Barzman] knew that he and J.F. had created the paintings and that his statements to the contrary were untruthful,” Barzman admitted in his plea agreement. 

Giving false statements to a government agency carries a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison.

In a statement, the OMA said:

Today we learned of the plea agreement entered in connection with the ongoing investigation involving last year’s “Heroes and Monsters” exhibition as it was announced publicly. The Orlando Museum of Art awaits the investigation’s conclusion and hopes it brings justice to all victims.

In the wake of this ongoing investigation, the Orlando Museum of Art has recommitted itself to its mission to provide excellence in the visual arts with its exhibitions, collections, and educational programming.

We have taken and will continue to take actions that realign the institution with its mission. These actions include supporting employees impacted by the exhibition and investigation, adopting new personnel policies with enhanced whistleblower protections, meeting with many community members and leaders, receiving governance training for the board, and working with the American Alliance of Museums to repair the institution’s standing.

Where such actions can be disclosed publicly, they have been and will continue to be.

The Museum is eager for the DOJ to continue its investigation and hold those who committed crimes responsible. When this investigation is closed, and charges are brought, the Museum looks forward to sharing our story regarding the works in question.

The Orlando Museum of Art remains grateful to its employees, supporters, and community.

The Headlines

A BREAK IN THE CASE. Last June, the FBI raided the Orlando Museum of Art, taking 25 paintings said to be previously unknown Jean-Michel Basquiats, an attribution disputed by many experts. The OMA’s director was soon ousted. Now federal prosecutors say that a Los Angeles man has admitted to helping create and sell the paintings, per the New York Times. Michael Barzman, an auctioneer, will plead guilty to making false statements to investigators when he initially claimed to know nothing about the allegedly ersatz artworks. Court docs say that Barzman worked with an unnamed individual, who spent five to 30 minutes making each work. His lawyer told the Courthouse News Service that his client did it because he “was drowning in medical debt.” One of the current owners of the works, attorney Pierce O’Donnell, told the Times that he still believes the paintings are genuine, calling Barzman “a proven unreliable person.”

CARL FISCHER, the self-taught photographer who shot many of Esquire magazine’s instantly iconic (and frequently controversial) covers in the 1960s and ‘70s, died last Friday at the age of 98, Neil Genzlinger reports in the New York Times. Working with the art director George Lois, who was credited with the concepts, Fischer used an array of techniques to portray public figures in unusual circumstances, like the boxer and activist Muhammad Ali stuck with arrows and the artist Andy Warhol sinking into a huge can of Campbell’s soup. He made the latter by taking the Pop star’s portrait and pasting it into an image that he made of a marble falling into a normal-size can of tomato soup.

The Digest

Australian artist John Olsen, who won fame for his vibrant, abstracted landscape paintings, and who took home his nation’s prestigious Archibald prize in 2005 for a self-portrait, died on Tuesday at 95. “Painting was our father’s life, and he was painting right up to the last,” his children said in a statement. [The Guardian]

Italy is pursuing legislation that would impose a minimum fine of €10,000 (about $10,900) for vandalizing important cultural sites. That figure could climb to €60,000 ($66,000) in some cases. The proposal comes as climate activists have been targeting monuments and artworks in protests throughout Europe. [The Associated Press]

Staffers at the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels have cosigned a letter to the Belgian government complaining of a toxic workplace marked by unequal treatment and a lack of “equity and basic justice.” They claim that their “leaders turn a deaf ear while we survive in a general malaise.” [The Brussels Times]

Officials are exploring a plan to stage miniature biennales around the Indian state of Kerala, its minister for tourism revealed at the closing ceremony for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. [The Hindu]

A wildfire in Gangneung, on the east cost of South Korea, damaged heritage sites, including the Sangyeongjeong pavilion that dates to 1859 and parts of the Inwolsa temple. [The Korea Herald]

Archaeologists at the Mayan site of Chichen Itza on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula have found an ancient scoreboard that was used in a soccer-like game. It measures about a foot across, weighs a formidable 88 pounds, and is believed to date to around 800 to 900. [Reuters]

The Kicker

A SURPRISE COMMISSION. The United States Postal Service recently released the 46th stamp in its Black Heritage series, a vivid portrait of the late novelist Ernest J. Gaines. The man responsible for that image is artist Robert Peterson, who is based in Lawton, Oklahoma, and while he has been painting seriously for about a decade, he had some doubts when the USPS first reached out to him. “I thought it was fake, to be honest,” Peterson told KFDX. “I thought I was being scammed or Punk’d or something like that.” Next year, he will have a solo show at the Wichita Art Museum in Kansas. His stamps can be purchased online, at post offices across the country. [KFDX]

Mulford’s retirement was first reported by the Orlando Sentinel, which noted that with it, the OMA’s top leaders during last year’s Basquiat scandal have all left the institution. 

The former museum director, Aaron De Groft, was fired in June 2022 by the OMA board of trustees only days after the FBI seized a suite of paintings on display that were attributed to Basquiat. A FBI affidavit revealed that the works had been at the center of a nine-year-long investigation into their authenticity, and that the museum had been served a subpoena prior to the opening of the exhibition “Heroes & Monsters” in February 2022. Several former trustees have claimed that De Groft and the former board chair, Cynthia Brumback, withheld knowledge of the subpoena.

De Groft, who had vocally defended the works to the media, was replaced by interim director Luder Whitlock. A swift museum shakeup followed: Whitlock resigned after less than two months on the job, and two days after his departure, the board replaced Brumback as chair. Brumback had faced criticism from the Orlando community for her presumed failure to avert the scandal. She said in a statement in August that she had stepped down from her position to “focus on my business and my family.”

An internal announcement was issued by OMA interim chief operating officer, Joann Walfish, on the day of Mulford’s departure. “Today we are announcing the retirement of Chief Curator Hansen Mulford,” she wrote in the message. “We thank Hansen for over 40 years of service to the Orlando Museum of Art. Mulford’s last day as our Chief Curator was February 17.”

Walfish confirmed in a statement that Coralie Claeysen-Gleyzon would act as interim chief curator while a search was conducted for his replacement.  

Mulford, meanwhile, “has agreed to be a consultant to OMA for a limited time on the Museum’s 2023 Florida Prize in Contemporary Art,” Walfish added. The institution, which was put on probation with the American Alliance of Museums in January, is also searching for De Groft’s replacement. 

In the nine months since the FBI raid, the museum has launched several initiatives to reestablish its credibility. The board of trustees commissioned the Orlando-based Akerman law firm to investigate the Basquiat scandal and has been receiving recommendations based on the results of the probe for months.

In an interview this past September, current board president Mark Elliott told the Orlando Sentinel that the investigation’s findings would be made public, however to date, no information has been shared. The museum has not responded to requests for comment on the investigation.

Commonly called the AAM, it is one of the most prominent museum accreditation groups in the nation. The AAM monitors the conduct of more than 5,000 museums and facilitates partnerships among its members; expulsion from the group can have severe consequences for an institution’s ability to borrow and loan artworks. 

The AAM did not share a reason for OMA’s probation with WESH, which first reported the news on Friday.

The museum was at the center of a scandal last June when 25 paintings attributed to Basquiat were seized from the premises in broad daylight. Prior to the seizure, some had cast doubts on the paintings’ authenticity. An FBI affidavit released detailed a nine-year investigation into the artworks and their owners.

A series of swift shakeups at the museum followed, starting with the former museum director Aaron De Groft, who was ousted by the board of trustees only four days after the raid. De Groft unveiled the paintings to the public in February and vehemently defended them amid mounting challenges to their credibility. De Groft and the paintings’ owners claimed the works were created around 1982 by Basquiat while he was living and working in a Los Angeles and had been forgotten in a storage unit for decades. 

The FBI affidavit provided evidence to the contrary, including an interview with the purported original owner of the paintings who swore he had never patronized the famed artist.  

Also revealed during the investigation was a threatening correspondence between De Groft and one of the experts he commissioned to authenticate the paintings. That expert had requested that her name not be associated with the show, titled “Heroes and Monsters.”

On July 5, De Groft was replaced by interim director Luder Whitlock, whose appointment was intended to help the OMA “move beyond recent events and focus on the future,” the museum noted in a statement. Whitlock resigned after less than two months on the job. 

Two days after the Whitlock’s departure, the board replaced its chair, Cynthia Brumback, who was facing considerable criticism from the community for her failure to avert the scandal. 

Several former trustees dismissed in April told Orlando press that an FBI subpoena was sent to OMA on July 27, 2021—almost seven months before the exhibition opened—demanding “any and all” communications among the museum’s staff, board, and the owners of the paintings. The former trustees, who were dismissed according to bylaws adopted that year, said Brumback did not inform the board of the subpoena, except for the trustee who handled finances. 

The OMA said in a statement that it “remains fully accredited and has been a member in good standing of AAM since 1971. Our status is now temporarily probationary after the events surrounding the Heroes & Monsters exhibition. We are working with the AAM to remove our probationary status and expect to remain in good standing.”