Trump Tower fire victim Todd Brassner is surrounded by mysterious circumstances that were unveiled during a probe of the incident, including his financial problems and connection with famed pop artist Andy Warhol.
The 67-year-old art collector passed away while being treated at Mt. Sinai-West Hospital after his apartment at the 50th floor of the infamous skyscraper in New York City caught fire on Saturday, making him the first fatality in the incident, CBS News reported.
His death and the blaze prompted a probe on the building, which led authorities to uncover that the building didn’t have any sprinklers installed. However, that wasn’t the most interesting thing that they uncovered.
As it turns out, Brassner was more than an avid art collector— he was a financially embattled friend of the leading pop art figure, Andy Warhol, and had once been dubbed by American President Donald Trump as a “crazy Jew.”
According to Radar Online, the 67-year-old Trump Tower fire victim had been having financial problems and sold his art collection in 2007. He later filed for bankruptcy in 2015.
During his art sale, he let go of several Warhol prints including a 1967 portrait that earned him $601,000 and the popular Marilyn Monroe print from 1978, which the American artist inscribed “to Todd.”
#TrumpTower fire victim ID’d as Todd Brassner, art dealer who sold Warhol prints: reports https://t.co/CJPse0jmeY
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 8, 2018
Based on the outlet’s insider information, Brassner was a man who liked “the best things in life,” causing him to become broke.
Moreover, CBS News added that the 67-year-old art collector’s family stopped helping him trade art by the end of 2014. He was also “plagued with debilitating medical problems that have made it difficult for him to function” during the past couple of years.
Interestingly, the Trump Tower fire victim has also been known to “despise” his landlord , President Donald Trump, who apparently felt the same way towards him, New York Daily News chimed in.
Based on the report citing a friend of Brassner’s, the 45th President of the United States even called him a “crazy Jew” shortly after the art collector moved into his building over 20 years ago.
Because of this, Trump was criticized for his tone-deaf Tweet about the Trump Tower being “well-built” as media outlets like the Guardian recalled how he fought hard against installing sprinklers in his apartment building in 1999.
Fire at Trump Tower is out. Very confined (well built building). Firemen (and women) did a great job. THANK YOU!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 7, 2018
“People feel safer with sprinklers. But the problem with the bill is that it doesn’t address the buildings that need sprinklers the most. If you look at the fire deaths in New York, almost all of them are in one- or two-family houses,” the property mogul-turned-politician said in the 1999 interview.
Meanwhile, the cause of the Trump Tower fire has yet to be revealed as authorities continue their investigation.