The former chief operating officer of Atlanta's High Museum of Art — the Southeast's premier visual-art museum — has been sentenced to one year in federal prison for stealing more than $600,000 from the institution over six years, using doctored invoices and his own expense approvals to pay for high-end guitars, music lessons and woodworking equipment.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Northern District of Georgia
Brady Lum, 60, of Atlanta, Georgia, was sentenced on Monday, November 2, by U.S. District Judge Michael L. Brown to one year in prison, to be followed by one year of supervised release. Before the sentencing hearing, Lum had already paid full restitution of $607,688.18 to the High Museum and voluntarily paid approximately $500,000 more to cover the costs the museum incurred uncovering and investigating his activity — a combined repayment of more than $1.1 million, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia.
From Coca-Cola and Special Olympics to the High's top operations job
Lum served as the High Museum's chief operating officer from January 2, 2019, until his resignation on December 9, 2025. Before joining the High, he had held leadership positions at the Coca-Cola Company and at Special Olympics International, prosecutors said. As COO he controlled the museum's operational and financial activities — the purchasing, invoicing and reimbursement systems he is now convicted of turning against the institution itself.
The theft began quickly. Prosecutors said Lum started siphoning money from the museum in September 2019, less than nine months after he started the COO job, and continued through the discovery of the fraud in November 2025. Officials at the Woodruff Arts Center, the High's parent organisation, have said an investigation led to the discovery of 'financial irregularities' at the museum, after which Lum resigned last December, according to Associated Press reporting on the sentencing.
Guitars, lessons and a $9,147.87 invoice
During his tenure, Lum repeatedly purchased non-business items and services for himself — including expensive guitars and other music equipment, personal music lessons and woodworking equipment — through direct supplier invoicing and the High Museum's corporate credit-card reimbursement process, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. In its earlier guilty-plea announcement, the office said Lum received more than 700 reimbursements over the course of the scheme, most of them for less than $1,000 — a pattern that kept individual transactions small while the total passed $600,000.
Associated Press reporting gave one concrete example prosecutors cited: in November 2024, Lum submitted an invoice showing a $9,147.87 purchase of equipment that turned out to be for a guitar and accessories. Lum concealed the nature of his transactions in several ways, prosecutors said: by submitting altered invoices, by using his position to approve his own expenses, and by using accounting adjustments to spread his expenses across different cost centres so no single budget line showed the pattern.
U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said: 'Lum brazenly pilfered hundreds of thousands of dollars from a beloved civic institution to pay for his high-end guitars and other personal items. His appalling breach of trust damaged not only the High Museum but also the larger art community.' Marlo Graham, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta, said: 'We expect leaders of one of our communities' historic institutions to serve as stewards, not loot it. Brady Lum manipulated internal processes to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars.'
The guilty plea and the charge
Lum pleaded guilty in July 2026 to one federal charge of theft concerning programs receiving federal funds — the charge that applies because the museum receives federal support. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas N. Joy prosecuted the case.
Why a museum embezzlement matters beyond Atlanta's art world
The High Museum of Art, in Midtown Atlanta as part of the Woodruff Arts Center, is a civic institution supported by a mix of ticket and membership income, donations and public money — which is why the federal charge, and the prison term, attach to what might otherwise look like an internal workplace theft. For readers who run or work in nonprofits, schools, gurdwaras, charities and small businesses across Georgia and the wider United States, the mechanics are the warning: the person who could approve his own expenses, alter the invoice that justified them and re-code the cost centre afterwards faced no effective second pair of eyes for more than six years, and the museum then spent roughly another $500,000 just to investigate what had happened. Separation of duties — one person buys, another approves, a third reconciles — is the control prosecutors' account suggests was missing.
What happens next
Lum will serve the one-year federal prison term imposed by Judge Brown, followed by one year of supervised release. The money side is already settled on the record presented in court: the $607,688.18 in restitution has been paid in full, and the approximately $500,000 toward the museum's investigative expenses and legal fees was paid voluntarily before sentencing, as part of his plea agreement. No further court date was announced in the sentencing releases; the remaining questions — what internal controls the High and the Woodruff Arts Center have changed since the November 2025 discovery — are for the institutions, which have described the matter publicly only as 'financial irregularities' uncovered by their own investigation.