Federal Grand Jury Indicts Pearl Arts-and-Crafts Chain Owner In Tax Fraud Case

Pearl/Canal Street

Just around the time when the current generation of hipsters was born, New York artists often purchased their supplies at the store everyone called "Pearl." The Canal Street location and somewhat funky interior made the store something of an icon. However, there were frequent whispers about Pearl's solvency, one wondered about the strength of its vendor relations, and the store couldn't or wouldn't escape a vaguely corrupt aura. (That feeling was hardly an unusual one in New York stores of that time.)

Over the years, Pearl expanded beyond Canal Street, but somehow lost its soul. Recently, I walked past the Canal Street branch. It looked sadly off its game, without the ragged verve that characterized its better years.

Pearl will need something more than pixie dust to recover its mojo. A number of years ago, a federal grand jury indicted Pearl's Florida-domiciled owner, Robert Perlmutter, his East Meadow, NY store manager, and nine others, including Mr. Perlmutter's accountant. The East Meadow store manager has quite a bit of explaining to do. According to the Fort Lauderdale-based Sun-Sentinel, which broke the Pearl story, the caper became a crime investigation due to a snafu at UPS. It's alleged that the East Meadow store manager routinely shipped boxes of cash from his store to Perlmutter via "Brown." One of the boxes broke during shipment. The money flowed out and UPS notified law enforcement authorities. The Feds became quickly interested in the matter.

Federal indictments are characteristically bad news for the accused. The Feds usually win the cases. Since that was the situation in la cause Perlmutter, then it's likely Pearl is kaput. That event wouls spell fini to an era that truthfully died long ago, partly from the very corruption that the federal indictment has targeted.