Long before the J. Paul Getty Trust made headlines for its CEO’s wheeling and dealing, there were early warning signs. Barry Munitz, the institution’s high-profile chief executive, acted as if the Getty’s staff were there to serve his personal needs. Munitz reportedly had his underlings at the institution, the nation’s largest philanthropy dedicated to the visual arts, mail him umbrellas when he traveled, and track down special blood orange juice for his wife. Staffers were even dispatched to pick up videos that Munitz planned to watch.
Getty general counsel Peter Erichsen was disturbed by Munitz’s actions, and insisted that his boss calculate the value of these services and declare them as taxable income. But “Dr. Munitz was not pleased” by Erichsen’s intervention, says John Biggs, who recalls the 2003 encounter between the two. “There was never any overt retaliation,” adds Biggs, who was the Getty’s chairman at the time. “But there was covert hostility. Body language.” (Munitz declined to be interviewed for this story.)
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