Tim Brown (aka Aaron Timmer Brown) persona non grata in wine

Hatted Tim Brown (aka Aaron Timmer Brown) in Catalonia 

There is a new app called Wine.Pop now doing the rounds. It aims to sign up wineries/producers for an annual fee to bring visitors to them. With the growth of oenotourism this is a sensible idea. Unfortunately, however, there is a massive obstacle to its success – fraudster Aaron Timmer Brown.

Let me explain. This is a story that starts with cycling and ends for the moment in wine. 44-year-old Aaron Timmer Brown was born in Canada. He blagged his way into cycle journalism claiming to have done some racing, although there is apparently no evidence to support this claim.

Brown became involved with a new biking website called Cyclismas with Lesli Cohen as business partner. In 2012 Paul Kimmage, an ex-pro rider and now outspoken cycle racing journalist, was threatened with a libel action by fellow Irishman Pat McQuaid, then president of the Union Cycliste Internationale, Hein Verbruggen, McQuaid’s predecessor at the UCI, and the UCI itself.

Cyclismas rapidly organised a defence fund for Kimmage. This proved to be a very popular cause and some $92,000 was raised from many donors – myself included. Unfortunately Aaron Brown got sole control of this fund. He did pay out $23,164 to Paul Kimmage for legal expenses but the remaining $69,935 stayed either firmly stuck to Brown’s pockets or was used to support him in Spain where he moved in early 2013.

Lesli Cohen successfully brought a legal action against Aaron Brown in Massachusetts to both dissolve the business partnership and raise the disappearance of the Paul Kimmage Fund. Aaron Brown failed to attend the court claiming that it lacked legitimacy! The reality appears to be that his lawyer despaired of getting any straight and truthful answers out of Brown as well as being convinced that she would not be paid.

In early 2015 the court judged that Lesli Cohen shall recover $46,862.06 plus post judgment interest from Brown and that Bill Hue, one of the Kimmage donors who joined the action was entitled to $84,580.25 with post judgment interest – $27.92 a day. As far as I know Brown has yet to pay a cent of this judgment, so that he now owes well in excess to $100,000.  A strong incentive to remain in Spain and not venture back to the USA.

Aaron Timmer Brown is also wary of returning to his native Canada, where he owes at least $77,031 to Jennifer Brown in maintenance/child support. He is due to pay $1700 a month but over the period 17.6.2009 to 22.6.2011 forked out only $248.

Having screwed as many people in cycling as possible and with the doors slammed against him, Aaron Timmer Brown or Tim Brown, as this parasite now calls himself, has decided to reinvent himself as a wine expert with particular expertise and love for the wines of Catalonia. His initial wheeze was to persuade four local wineries to invest 500€ a month for a year in the production of a video called the Grapes of Catalunya supposedly due out in January 2016. To date, unsurprisingly, there is no sign of this video apart from a few snippets on the internet – rather a poor return for 24,000€.

Brown claims that the video is still in production. This may be but its dedicated website has disappeared and is now up for sale. If The Disappearing Catalunya Grapes video ever does appear I will be happy to give it coverage.

So Wine.Pop is the latest wheeze to involve Tim Brown (aka fraudster Aaron Timmer Brown). Sinisa Curavic is the public face of Wine.Pop. Unfortunately, although Sinisa is fully aware and shocked by Brown’s background he has clearly decided to continue to be involved with Brown. I can only assume Sinisa trusts Brown’s word more than he does court documents ….. Both were reported to attempting to sign up producers to Wine.Pop at the big Verema event at the Museu Marítim in Barcelona yesterday.

Sinisa Curavic, the public face of Wine.Pop

ArteBacchus to Wine.Pop

The Wine.Pop app started life as ArteBacchus, which was developed by Tomas Voltz –Mister Pop on Twitter. It is not clear whether the further development of the app is being funded by Tomas Volts and ArteBacchus. An alternative possibility is that Brown has prised some notes from the looted Paul Kimmage Fund from his sticky trousers and has invested in Wine.Pop. This might explain why Curavic hasn’t yet managed to banish Brown from Wine.Pop. Having met Sinisa in Jerez in back in February, I would have thought he was certainly savvy enough to realise that any association with fraudster Tim Brown would be both detrimental to Wine.Pop and his own reputation. Sinisa Curavic’s continuing association with the fraudulent Tim Brown is thus somewhat of a regrettable mystery.

In contrast to Curavic’s continued association, several of the Ambassadors signed up by Brown and Curavic to persuade wineries to pay an annual fee to become part of Wine.Pop have very understandably put as much distance between themselves and Brown/Wine.Pop as soon as they were aware of Brown’s fraudulent past.

This member of Les 5 du Vin certainly urges producers not to sign up to Wine.Pop, while Tim Brown (aka Aaron Timmer Brown) has anything to do with this app.

Message to Brown – we don’t need people like you in the wine industry. Make yourself scarce. 

Jim Budd