Philadelphia Art Museum Accuses Former Director of Theft 

The administrative whirlwind at the Philadelphia Art Museum (PhAM) continues. After former Director and CEO Alexandra “Sasha” Suda filed a complaint accusing the museum of unlawful termination, PhAM is countering with its own legal filing, alleging that Suda misappropriated thousands of dollars in museum funds.

On November 20, the museum filed a petition with the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas to shift the conflict out of the courts and into the hands of a confidential arbitrator. The move was in response to Suda’s lawsuit against the museum on November 10, six days after she was terminated. Last week, PhAM announced that former Metropolitan Museum of Art leader Daniel Weiss would be its next director and CEO. 

In her complaint, Suda claimed that a “small, corrupt faction of the [museum] board” had commissioned an external law firm to conduct a “sham investigation” into her expenses and recommended her resignation. But the museum’s motion alleges that between March 2024 and July 2025, Suda awarded herself three unauthorized salary increases without disclosure or approval. 

In a statement to Hyperallergic, a PhAM spokesperson confirmed that the museum filed the petition in response to Suda’s claims and declined to comment further. 

Luke Nikas, Suda’s lawyer, said in an emailed statement to Hyperallergic that “the motion, as well as its false narrative, fits the Museum’s longstanding pattern of trying to cover up its misconduct and mistreatment of staff.” 

“We expected the Museum would prefer to hide the sordid details about its unlawful treatment of Sasha Suda in a confidential arbitration,” Nikas continued. “If the Museum had nothing to hide, it would not be afraid to litigate in state court where we filed the case.”

Suda accused the museum of unlawful termination and multiple employment agreement violations and is seeking two years of severance pay at her contracted salary rate ($720,000 annually), alleging that she was dismissed “without valid basis.” 

The museum, however, argues that she was terminated “for cause” and is not entitled to severance pay as the external investigation concluded that she engaged in “dishonesty, misappropriation, breach of fiduciary duty as the Director or fraud.”

Suda had negotiated her starting salary at PhAM to be $720,000, the museum petition said, and the board explicitly noted that “absent extraordinary performance, she would not receive any additional increase in her compensation during the contract term.” Although the compensation committee denied Suda’s multiple requests for pay increases between 2023 and 2025, she awarded herself two unauthorized pay bumps effective in March and July 2024, respectively, the petition alleged. Suda never disclosed these increases, which included a third that was allegedly instituted this July, PhAM added. The museum’s petition also accuses Suda of unilaterally approving pay bumps for other staff members without committee approval. 

PhAM then asked Suda to produce documents related to her compensation, which served as the basis for the external law firm’s investigation, the institution said. 

Per Suda’s account, she had declined a scheduled pay increase in the first year of her five-year contract but received a standard 3% cost-of-living adjustment to her salary that had been approved by the museum’s new chief financial officer in 2024. She argued that the raise — “approximately $39,000 over two years” as her complaint states — was factored into the museum’s budget, cleared by the finance department, and transparently noted on the institution’s 990 form reviewed by the compensation committee. 

“The Museum’s accusations are false,” Nikas told Hyperallergic. “These are the same recycled allegations from the sham investigation that the Museum manufactured as a pretext for Suda’s wrongful termination.” 

The museum board’s executive committee voted unanimously to terminate Suda on October 27 in light of the investigation’s findings, but gave her the option of voluntarily resigning from her roles “to limit any adverse publicity,” PhAM’s complaint stated. 

Separately, the Philadelphia Inquirer revealed last week that over the summer, PhAM contacted the police regarding another former employee who has since been charged with theft. Latasha Harling, PhAM’s former chief people and diversity officer, reportedly racked up over $58,000 in personal expenses on her company credit card and failed to pay them back.

After the expenses were flagged this January, Harling resigned without resolution when the museum proposed she repay a portion, the Inquirer reported. Since resigning, Harling reportedly signed a legally binding agreement to repay about a third of the original figure over three months, which she didn’t honor. Harling was arrested in July and charged with theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception, and receiving stolen property.

Harling’s legal counsel declined to comment on the matter, and PhAM did not immediately respond.