The Long Island dealer at the center of an $80 million art forgery scheme that duped dozens of experts and buyers pleaded guilty on Monday to charges of wire fraud, money laundering and tax evasion.
The dealer, Glafira Rosales, is the only person who has been indicted in connection with the fraud, which passed off fake paintings as the work of Modernist masters. But she is cooperating with federal prosecutors, who have said that they expect further arrests.
What has particularly fascinated the art world is that the scores of paintings and drawings successfully presented as newly discovered works by some of the 20th century’s greatest artists were actually produced by a single man: an immigrant from China who painted out of his home and garage in Woodhaven, Queens.
Ms. Rosales, wearing a charcoal pinstripe jacket and speaking in a halting, barely audible voice, acknowledged to Judge Katherine P. Failla in United States District Court in Manhattan that she had promoted paintings as the work of Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell that “were, in fact, fakes created by an individual in Queens.”
Investigators have said that 40 of the counterfeits were sold through Knoedler & Company, a venerable Upper East Side gallery that abruptly closed in November 2011 after being in business for more than 165 years. At least 23 other fakes were sold through a second Manhattan dealer, Julian Weissman. Ms. Rosales earned $33.2 million, while the galleries received more than $47 million in total, according to a statement issued by the Manhattan United States attorney, Preet Bharara.
Knoedler; Ann Freedman, its former president; and Mr. Weissman are being sued in civil court by various clients who bought art provided by Ms. Rosales; they have all said that they were convinced that the works were genuine, though they have acknowledged that Ms. Rosales did not provide them with documentation to establish the art’s provenance.
In court, Ms. Rosales, who had been arrested in May, dabbed at her eyes with a tissue after she detailed her role in the fraud and listened to the judge explain that she could owe up to $81 million in restitution and have to forfeit her home in Sands Point, N.Y.; her art collection; and her bank accounts. She also faces a maximum sentence of 99 years in prison, although her recommended sentence under federal sentencing guidelines is likely to be far less.
Ms. Rosales’s co-conspirators are not named in the indictment. But people familiar with the case have identified the painter as Pei-Shen Qian, 73, a Chinese immigrant who came to the United States in 1981 and attended classes at the Art Students League in New York. He was discovered in the 1980s by Ms. Rosales’s partner and former boyfriend, who was named in the government’s papers only as co-conspirator “CC-1,” but is identified in other court documents as Jose Carlos Bergantiños Diaz.
Both men were involved in marking the counterfeits with false signatures, according to the statement issued by Mr. Bharara’s office. The prosecutors said CC-1 had treated the works to give them “the false patina of age.”
Mr. Qian was paid as little as a few thousand dollars for each work.
Beginning in 1994, Ms. Rosales wove a story about these never-before-seen works, telling Knoedler and Mr. Weissman that the owner had inherited the works from his father and insisted on remaining anonymous.
Mr. Bergantiños Diaz and Mr. Qian are believed to be out of the country. Most of the profits garnered by Ms. Rosales through the sale of the fakes were funneled through a bank account in Spain controlled by Mr. Bergantiños Diaz’s brother, according to court papers.
Ms. Freedman’s lawyer, Nicholas A. Gravante Jr., said, “I have been assured in the strongest terms that nobody is contemplating filing any criminal charges against Ann Freedman.”
旅美華裔畫家 捲入24億仿畫騙局
73歲錢培琛 紐約街頭賣畫被掮客發掘 仿作騙過許多知名交易商與專家 他每幅畫卻僅賺得12萬元
六十三幅謊稱是傑克遜．波洛克、巴奈特．紐曼、羅伯特．馬瑟韋爾及理查．笛本康等抽象表現主義大師的畫作，從1994年起以每幅動輒上百萬美元的價格流入市面，賣價共超過八千萬美元（約台幣廿四億元）。這些仿畫其實出自一位中國大陸移居紐約的藝術工作者錢培琛之手，而他每幅畫的酬勞僅約台幣十二萬元。
紐約時報及英國廣播公司報導，美國聯邦政府已對銷售這些仿畫的掮客羅莎蕾絲，控以洗錢、詐欺、逃稅及未申報國外銀行帳戶等罪名。起訴書中指出，羅莎蕾絲及同夥向客戶推銷畫作時，都謊稱這些作品是「新發現的」真品。不過錢培琛並未被列為被告。
七十三歲的錢培琛是大陸舟山人，1981年移民紐約。法院文件指出，1990年代初期錢培琛在曼哈坦街頭賣畫，被嫌犯羅莎蕾絲的男友兼合夥人狄亞茲發現，請他按照一些抽象表現主義名畫家的風格作畫，還仿造他們的簽名。
羅莎蕾絲曾將一些仿畫以賣斷或寄賣的方式，交予曼哈坦著名的康德勒公司及交易商魏斯曼，靠他們的信譽及一些專家的背書文字，以每幅上百萬美元的真品價格賣出。
康德勒公司前總裁佛瑞曼及魏斯曼兩人一再表示，他們一直相信這些畫作是真品，儘管缺乏證明文件，而這些畫作都曾在一些國際展場、一處博物館及一處美國大使館展出。檢方並未起訴兩人。據笛本康基金會執行董事葛蘭特表示，「不管是誰仿畫，繪畫技巧都極為高超。」
但詐欺計畫於2009年出包，一些仿冒馬瑟韋爾的畫作因真實性遭到質疑而被送到聯邦調查局，使藝術品的投資價值備受爭議，也使得一些為這些仿品背書的鑒賞家名譽掃地，訟案紛至沓來，苦主包括一位導演和科威特的王妃，一致要求交易商退還數百萬美元並賠償損失。
羅莎蕾絲於今年被捕到案，檢察官並向法院聲押獲准；直到上周檢察官重新對她起訴後，才以二百五十萬美元交保。
調查人員表示，錢培琛對本案究竟知情多少，目前仍不清楚。仿繪大師作品或在自己的畫作上簽註畫家的名字，在出售時只要明白表示這是膺品，並不違法；但如果謊稱是真品賣出，便屬違法。錢培琛夫婦幾個月前突然從紐約皇后區自宅搬走，如今已人間蒸發。
原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/arts/design/art-dealer-admits-role-in-selling-fake-works.html
2013-09-18．聯合報．A18．國際．編譯任中原
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