Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Guy who did fake paintings fled to China

From the NY Times:

Glafira Rosales’ brush with the good life is coming to an end.

The Long Island art dealer behind a long-running counterfeit painting swindle that scammed wealthy collectors out of more than $80 million pleaded guilty Monday in Manhattan federal court and now faces up to a century in prison.

Mexican-born Rosales sold more than 60 worthless paintings, claiming they were unknown works by Expressionist masters such as Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock.

"These works of art were actually fakes," Rosales told Judge Katherine Failla.

The Woodhaven man who painted the artworks, Pei-Shen Qian, 73, won't be charged and has returned to his native China, said Nicholas Gravante Jr., lawyer for Anne Freedman, the former president of an upper East Side art gallery that was one of at least two people duped by Rosales.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

she stole from the rich.

she committed fraud and made wealthy buyers look like fools.

she gets 99 years in prison.

if her crime instead had been raping some anonymous nobody or selling drugs to children, she'd get a lot less.

yeah, that makes a lot of sense...