A young arts patron who was accused of donating $10 million to the Metropolitan Opera that did not belong to him died by suicide in May, the city’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner said on Monday.
Before his death, the 40-year-old patron, Matthew Christopher Pietras, had become a fixture among the philanthropic elite at prestigious institutions including the Met and the Frick Collection. An employee of the Soros family, Mr. Pietras had donated enough to be made a managing director on the Met’s board and have his name inscribed on the wall of the Frick.
But in late May his philanthropy came under scrutiny when Mr. Pietras arranged for the transfer of $10 million to the Met — his largest donation yet to the opera company.
After the transfer, a Soros representative reached out to the Met and told the company that the money actually belonged to a member of the Soros family and not to Mr. Pietras, according to a Met official with knowledge of the institution’s actions. The Met reached out to Mr. Pietras, who had described himself as a financial manager, for an explanation. The next day, on May 30, Mr. Pietras was found dead at his apartment near Madison Square Park.
The cause of his death remained unresolved for months, subject to pending toxicology tests.
The medical examiner’s office said Monday that Mr. Pietras had died from acute intoxication by pharmaceutical drugs, specifying the “combined effects of cyclobenzaprine, clonazepam and propanol.”
Representatives for Mr. Pietras’s estate did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The questions surrounding Mr. Pietras’s life and death became the subject of media coverage in July, starting with an essay in Air Mail in which a friend, Jane Boon, raised questions about Mr. Pietras’s extravagant generosity. (She recalled him giving a $40,000 watch as a gift and hosting a trip at a private chalet in the French Alps for his friends.)
An exposé by New York Magazine reported that Mr. Pietras had lived a life of luxury by exploiting his access to the finances of his two wealthy bosses; he had worked as a personal assistant to Gregory Soros, a son of the billionaire investor George Soros, and as chief of staff to Courtney Sale Ross, the widow of the Time Warner chief Steven J. Ross.
Since Mr. Pietras’s death, the Soros and Ross families have been working together to investigate the extent of Mr. Pietras’s unauthorized donations.
The unraveling of Mr. Pietras’s $10 million donation presented a serious financial problem for the Met Opera, which had been counting on the money for its cash flow. To make up for the shortfall, the company withdrew an additional $5 million from its endowment — bringing its total withdrawal from the fund to $50 million last season — and several members of the board’s executive committee contributed the rest.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, the Met has withdrawn more than a third of the money in its endowment fund to help it cover operating costs — about $120 million overall. The Met announced last week that it had reached a lucrative agreement with Saudi Arabia to perform in the kingdom for three weeks each winter, which the company hopes will shore up its finances.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources. If you are someone living with loss, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention offers grief support.
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
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