Final week the FBI raided the Miami High-quality Artwork Gallery in Florida for allegedly promoting cast artwork together with artworks they falsely authenticated as actual work by the late Pop Artwork icon, Andy Warhol. The outpost is owned by the artwork supplier, Leslie Roberts, who has been charged in federal courtroom for “conspiring to promote cast artwork,” as per Artnet. “The 62-year-old supplier used fraudulent invoices and authentication paperwork to promote the works, officers declare.”
Accompanying Roberts in prices is a 37-year previous man named Carlos Miguel Rodriguez Melendez who was hit with prices for wire fraud that linked to the solid art work . Each people had been arrested, however as of now, are free on bail with a slated April 21 arraignment. In the event that they’re discovered responsible, the pair resist 20 years in federal jail.
The indictment said that Roberts relayed the items as authentic work related to the Andy Warhol Basis for Visible Arts. Melendez seemingly claimed that he labored at an public sale home in New York to persuade the victims into considering that the works had been genuine.
“To make the fraudulent artwork look like genuine items created by Andy Warhol, Leslie Howard Roberts utilized cast authentication paperwork that had been purportedly supplied by the Andy Warhol Artwork Authentication Board, Inc.,” as per the indictment.
The New York Occasions reported that one of many victims was a household of artwork collectors, Matthew, Judy and Richard Perlman with the household having filed a civil lawsuit in opposition to Roberts claiming that he enticed them to pay over $6 million USD for the bootleg Warhols. “The Perelman household acquired greater than 250 works, and paid $325,000 USD for a group of depictions of Mao Zedong, one among Warhol’s hottest topics.
