Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Zaren Elizabeth, what's up? How you doing? Girl?
Speaker 3: Good? You know it's ridiculous?
Speaker 2: Ah, yes, do I You ever heard of Betty Penrose? No,
Speaker 2: she was a secretary. Her boss was a lawyer in Oakland, Okay,
Speaker 2: in her hometown. He filed a lawsuit on behalf of
Speaker 2: his secretary. And that's how Betty Penrose sued God. Why God, Elizabeth?
Speaker 2: Because God had struck her house with lightning nine years earlier,
Speaker 2: and so Betty Penrose sued God for quote negligence. She
Speaker 2: filed her lawsuit in a California court, even though the
Speaker 2: lightning strike had occurred in Arizona.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, we don't have a lot of
Speaker 3: lightning strikes.
Speaker 2: Exactly why California? Well, why a California court in particular,
Speaker 2: in particular, Elizabeth, nineteen sixty nine, Sonoma County? Why there?
Speaker 2: Why in the middle of your peak California? Great question, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: this woman, why would she sue God? Well in California? No? Less? Well?
Speaker 2: These important possibly, I'll tell you this much. Two words
Speaker 2: answer our question? What two words? Lou Gottlieb. If you
Speaker 2: don't know Lou Gottlieb. He was a former singer and
Speaker 2: bass player from the folk trio The Limelighters. Anyway, one
Speaker 2: week earlier than the lawsuit was filed, Lou Gottlieb had
Speaker 2: transferred the deed to his Morning Star ranch over to God. Okay,
Speaker 2: that legally made the Almighty a property owner in the
Speaker 2: state of California, and thus God could now be sued. So,
Speaker 2: according to the news story I found in the Indianapolis
Speaker 2: Star from May fifteenth, nineteen sixty nine, quote, the Sonoma
Speaker 2: County Clerk issued a summons for the deity and returned
Speaker 2: it to the attorney for service. So basically they were like, here,
Speaker 2: go find God, and you find the usubpoena the architect
Speaker 2: of the universe. Thank God. So, the news story goes on,
Speaker 2: is as plaintiff is informed and believes that defendant God,
Speaker 2: at all times mentioned herein is responsible for the maintenance
Speaker 2: and operation of the universe, including the weather in and
Speaker 2: upon the state of the Arizona, and that on or
Speaker 2: about August seventeenth, nineteen sixty Defendant so maintained and controlled
Speaker 2: the weather in or around or upon Phoenix, Arizona, in
Speaker 2: such careless and negligent manner as it caused lightning to
Speaker 2: strike the plaintiff's house, setting it on fire and startling,
Speaker 2: frightening and shocking the plaintiff. So they're saying that God's fault.
Speaker 2: So then this story, which is good because we had
Speaker 2: this like you know, this crazy folk trio that've left
Speaker 2: their land to God and this lady's got her like
Speaker 2: Oakland lawyer enter our next Kouk a dude in Kenya,
Speaker 2: Joseph and Juwey. He steps forward. He's read this story.
Speaker 2: He says, I will defend God in this lawsuit, this
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand dollars lawsuit. How dare you? So he's
Speaker 2: there in Nairobi and he writes the letter because this
Speaker 2: is from the Arizona Republic because they also reported on
Speaker 2: it May twenty second, nineteen sixty nine. They quote from
Speaker 2: in Juey's letter to the Attorney General of the United
Speaker 2: States of Arizona. As I understand you have signed the summons,
Speaker 2: I would request you kindly to hold this case until
Speaker 2: I try and get enough finances to come there and
Speaker 2: defend God in court without appealing in person. I can
Speaker 2: be called in the court after the change has been read.
Speaker 2: The plea of not guilty, must be endorsed. So he's like,
Speaker 2: let me go and fight and defend God. So this
Speaker 2: offer was kind, noble, we all have to agree, right,
Speaker 2: but ultimately unnecessary because Betty Penrose lost her lawsuit on
Speaker 2: a technicality. God was never able to take possession of
Speaker 2: land since the Almighty did not execute control of the
Speaker 2: deeded land. As The Indianapolis Star later reported, the deed
Speaker 2: filed quote last week conveying the hippie ranch to God
Speaker 2: was quote deemed invalid. So Betty Parsons lawsuit against God
Speaker 2: was thrown out. And so just like God, she no
Speaker 2: longer had any illegal grounds to stand on. So I
Speaker 2: love about this. In nineteen sixty nine and everything, there's
Speaker 2: all this mad stuff going on, and what is Betty
Speaker 2: Parsons doing. She's like, I'm a sue God.
Speaker 3: I was wondering, like, how would God pay the property taxes?
Speaker 3: So many method just like manna from heaven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also the whole idea that like if you
Speaker 2: are the you know, totally omniscient and all powerful, then
Speaker 2: you've already taken possession of the land, right you don't
Speaker 2: really have to exquest him that it makes sense the ridiculous,
Speaker 2: very ridiculous.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: You want to know what else is ridiculous? I'm here
Speaker 3: for it, Secret Rooms.
Speaker 2: What this is?
Speaker 3: Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists,
Speaker 3: and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
Speaker 3: one hundred percent ridiculous. I heard that I have for
Speaker 3: you today, sir. Another one of my top shelf cutis
Speaker 3: it's an art crime and a forgery. Hello man alive.
Speaker 3: I love these I love art. I'm a terrible artist.
Speaker 3: My only medium is words. Really, yeah, I can't draw
Speaker 3: or paint to save my life.
Speaker 2: Can you dance? No?
Speaker 3: I'm fascinated by those who can draw and paint.
Speaker 2: And even more people, Oh you're not me, so go on.
Speaker 3: So what I find even more fascinating is when someone
Speaker 3: who has a great skill doesn't use it to create
Speaker 3: their own work. That fascinates me. We've talked about that before,
Speaker 3: artists versus draftsman.
Speaker 2: Basically, oh yes, okay, the artist artisan? Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: So you can't call yourself an artist if you require
Speaker 3: direction to create something. That's my hot take, unpopular opinion.
Speaker 3: But oh how I love these forgers. I love their
Speaker 3: wily ways, but they break my heart by misusing all
Speaker 3: that talent. Okay, anyway, let me give you a quote
Speaker 3: from today's cat Please. Forgery was fun, like a challenging
Speaker 3: puzzle or riddle to solve. I love figuring out intriguing
Speaker 3: ways to make an artwork plausible. I loved doing everything perfect,
Speaker 3: leaving little hints that only the most knowledgeable experts would appreciate.
Speaker 3: It's strange to say, but half the fun was imagining
Speaker 3: the oohs and ahs I would get and the little
Speaker 3: nods of appreciation I might receive. Without that art forgery,
Speaker 3: would it just been another job?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean act totally relate. You make your work
Speaker 2: entertaining to you. Yeah, it's not the work that's entertaining.
Speaker 3: So who is this guy?
Speaker 2: Who is this guy?
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Anthony gen Tetro, Anthony gen Tetra, Tony Tetro, Tony Tetro.
Speaker 2: Good. Yeah, that's a great one, right.
Speaker 3: He's a serious character. He was born in nineteen fifty
Speaker 3: in Fulton, New York, to Beatrice and James Tetro.
Speaker 2: Also haven't heard of them? Run a three to three.
Speaker 3: Exactly, James House painter like you, I'm into that developed
Speaker 3: a special process for coating water towers. Innovator. Beatrice's claim
Speaker 3: to fame was that when she was a little girl,
Speaker 3: she saw Amelia Earhart land her plane on the family pasture.
Speaker 2: Oh dope, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: These are like good, honest folk who have like cool little.
Speaker 2: Things living Americana.
Speaker 3: And they created a wild child.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So Tetro he was an ultra boy. Were you an
Speaker 3: ultra boy? No?
Speaker 2: No, I always resisted all of my Catholic indoctrinations. So
Speaker 2: like I mean not like, I don't mean to sound
Speaker 2: like a jerk, but like a lot of my friends,
Speaker 2: like best friends, are ultra boys, like you should do
Speaker 2: it to be fun. I'm like, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: I already have to get up into a paper route.
Speaker 2: I'm not doing this. So no, I was not an alto.
Speaker 3: So Tetro ultra boy is a good kid. But like
Speaker 3: most altar boys, he had a mischievous streak. That's just
Speaker 3: a tree that is. He had no formal art training.
Speaker 3: All of his skills were innate or self taught. When
Speaker 3: he was in elementary school, he made his first piece
Speaker 3: of art. Quote, I drew a picture of one of
Speaker 3: the nuns. Sister Antonio I did this beautiful Vargas picture
Speaker 3: of her, but pruney faced and in a habit. She
Speaker 3: whacked me and took me to the priest.
Speaker 2: He chuckled, Wait a var like a Vargas girl. So
Speaker 2: he did her like a pin up with a prony face.
Speaker 3: That's yeah, so who is he? Let's stell, let's deal further.
Speaker 3: According to Ira Reiner, an LA district attorney, Tetro was
Speaker 3: quote the single largest forger of artworks in America.
Speaker 2: Really yeah, I don't think I've ever heard of it.
Speaker 3: And according to Gary Helton, the district attorney's investigator, quote,
Speaker 3: I consider mister Tetro to be one of the two
Speaker 3: major art forgers in the United States. It's like he
Speaker 3: gets first and then he gets a tie for first.
Speaker 2: He's like I would put an Asterix steroid era forgers
Speaker 2: came to come in.
Speaker 3: Tom Binder, president of Tom Binder Fine Arts in Venice, California.
Speaker 2: Tom Binder Fine Arts.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's Bender whatever, you know who cares.
Speaker 2: Got a binder full of benders.
Speaker 3: He said, quote, but you know what the bottom.
Speaker 2: Line is the bottom blind guy.
Speaker 3: Was just a brilliant mind that went astray. A Frankenstein.
Speaker 3: All I know is that guy's a genius.
Speaker 2: So he actually used Frankenstein correctly. He made it the
Speaker 2: doctor Frankenstein mad. You know, he went mad, not the monster.
Speaker 3: Exact way to buy that one bender so good. How
Speaker 3: did he get there? How did Tony get there? When
Speaker 3: he was sixteen, he married his pregnant high school girlfriend.
Speaker 3: He was a father at seventeen. He moved to California
Speaker 3: at nineteen, and then he was divorced by twenty three.
Speaker 2: Really Russian life.
Speaker 3: So he just moved five years exactly and then took
Speaker 3: his show over to the West coast and there you go.
Speaker 3: So he began studying art on his own. He went
Speaker 3: to museums all the time, like practiced. He experimented with
Speaker 3: paints and formal the for a baking process so that
Speaker 3: he could create krakolure.
Speaker 2: That's a really cool pattern. You have to do that
Speaker 2: a blaze. You put down one glaze and you put
Speaker 2: another on top of it. As it dries, it separates.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it makes it look old and it creates.
Speaker 2: It literally cracks like old desert earth. Right.
Speaker 3: So Tetro he was working at the Broadway Department store
Speaker 3: in the furniture department. Oh and one day, he picked
Speaker 3: up a book. I know, right, isn't that come on department?
Speaker 3: Oh he picked up a book Sarin.
Speaker 2: Oh strong man, Okay, showing up.
Speaker 3: Well, you know what book that was.
Speaker 2: It was the book take a Guess how to win
Speaker 2: friends and influence people.
Speaker 3: Close Fake by Clifford or You're bron Elmirdhoy Biography.
Speaker 2: I would not have guessed that he read.
Speaker 3: He picks that up, he reads it. This is how
Speaker 3: he described it. Quote. When I read that book, that
Speaker 3: was really the beginning of this for me. The more
Speaker 3: I read, the more I said to myself, I could
Speaker 3: do this.
Speaker 2: I think Elma would be so tickled by that.
Speaker 3: Isn't that the greatest? It's like an instruction menial for him.
Speaker 2: Full anarchist manifesto for art for Yeah.
Speaker 3: Here's what Tetro said about Dhore quote. I saw his paintings.
Speaker 3: He was in Los Angeles. I went to the galleries,
Speaker 3: talked to people who knew him. He was here in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles and sold a lot of paintings to celebrities
Speaker 3: and he signed them horri I think he was really
Speaker 3: good in creating fake art. I was impressed by him.
Speaker 3: So this is like he's got this mentor, and like
Speaker 3: an unassuming mentor. So so Tetro he began making reproductions
Speaker 3: of pieces. One of his first attempts at selling a
Speaker 3: faked piece was a copy of a copy.
Speaker 2: He wanted to do a copy of a forged.
Speaker 3: We talked about that with elmird Hori. Tetro copied a
Speaker 3: Dhoy copy of Chagall.
Speaker 2: So somebody wanted to They wanted their own Dehoy or
Speaker 2: so I wanted their own horri version of Chagall, And
Speaker 2: they were like, hey, Tetro, can you do that? Correct?
Speaker 3: So Tetro he brings the piece to try and sell
Speaker 3: it at a gallery and Vincent Price happened to be
Speaker 3: there at the time. Yeah, no price art connoisseurtion. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he knew his.
Speaker 2: Stuff, really great art.
Speaker 3: So he sees Tetro's piece and he says, I don't
Speaker 3: like him pointing at Elmuir's name, and I don't like
Speaker 3: him pointing to Shagall's name. So he's just like, get.
Speaker 2: This out of here. Here.
Speaker 3: Here's a fun fact. Did you know that if someone
Speaker 3: sends a Chagall painting to be authenticated by the Committee Chagall,
Speaker 3: it'll be destroyed under French law if it's determined to
Speaker 3: be fake.
Speaker 2: So I did not fair warning.
Speaker 3: Now, you know, back to Tetro undeterred, undeterred by all
Speaker 3: the insults from Vincent Price.
Speaker 2: So there's no appealing in that process.
Speaker 3: No, they're just like toss it in the fire, speak
Speaker 3: to the dust. So Tetro starts selling his pieces at
Speaker 3: art fairs, and he was up front that these were copies.
Speaker 3: But what he found is that people cared more about
Speaker 3: the art matching their decor than they did having some
Speaker 3: sort of like authentic piece.
Speaker 2: So they just want the effect, the feel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is why he put it. I would do
Speaker 3: a Rembrandt or a Renoir, and I only earned a
Speaker 3: few hundred dollars for it. I sold only a few paintings,
Speaker 3: maybe twenty I sold. Nobody wanted a Rembrandt because I
Speaker 3: figured if you put a rem brand over your fireplace,
Speaker 3: somebody's gonna think it's a print. I sold them for
Speaker 3: about three hundred dollars in an Aaron Brothers frame, although
Speaker 3: I didn't sell many, which is like a good point,
Speaker 3: you know, like if you're just living in like a
Speaker 3: ranch house in like Demas. Yeah, he started copying photographs then. Quote,
Speaker 3: I did portraits of many people judges FBI agents. I
Speaker 3: did Herb Huffif, and it's hanging in his office right now.
Speaker 3: Like FBI agent portraits is so good. So Herb Huffif.
Speaker 3: He's a trial lawyer in Claremont, California, which is like
Speaker 3: a postable suburb of La right foot of the San
Speaker 3: Gabriel Mountains. Hafif said the portrait was a Christmas gift
Speaker 3: from his employees. Quote those who claim it to be
Speaker 3: a wonderful likeness I consider to be my friends. The
Speaker 3: portrait forever memorializes me as a person in his early forties.
Speaker 2: The vasculinity of that jut out.
Speaker 3: So then, Tetro, it's like.
Speaker 2: The author photos. Just take one of the forties. You'll
Speaker 2: never see a updated.
Speaker 3: Tetro sold a Modigliani drawing for sixteen hundred dollars at
Speaker 3: an auction house in Santa Anna, but he got caught.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Tetro was asked if it was known by everyone at
Speaker 3: the gallery that the Modigliani was fake, and this is
Speaker 3: how he said it, and this is I love quoting
Speaker 3: him because it's so meandering and bizarre. Okay, so here
Speaker 3: it is. Quote, oh no, I showed it to another guy.
Speaker 3: Before that, and I told him that I did it.
Speaker 3: He was having an affair with Jack Warner's mistress, Jack
Speaker 3: Warner of Warner Brothers, and she left a diamond ring
Speaker 3: at the auction house that Jack Warner had given her.
Speaker 3: It was a twenty four carrot d flawless, a very
Speaker 3: valuable ring. And so he said to her, i'll sell it.
Speaker 3: I'll give you five thousand dollars now, and he gave
Speaker 3: her a bracelet and quote, I'll give you the rest
Speaker 3: when I sell it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: This guy was a thief, this guy at the auction house,
Speaker 3: and she never got a dime. This was worth at
Speaker 3: least a quarter of a million dollars, this ring. And
Speaker 3: that's how he did everything. He would tell an old
Speaker 3: lady who'd bring in a Tiffany lamp, oh, here's one
Speaker 3: hundred dollars. I'll give you the rest. The lamp would
Speaker 3: be worth ten thousand dollars, but she'd never see another penny.
Speaker 3: That's how he did things, and he got away with it.
Speaker 3: I didn't know any of this. When I walked into
Speaker 3: the auction house. He got mad at a guy. He
Speaker 3: saw my Adigliani drawing and he said, oh, that's fake
Speaker 3: and I told him my transmission broke and I needed
Speaker 3: the money. The guy called me. He got a hold
Speaker 3: of me, and he said, either you paint for me
Speaker 3: or I'll break your hands. I'll cut your hands off.
Speaker 2: He's like an eight year old telling his story. We know,
Speaker 2: I was supposed to go to the partment. I went
Speaker 2: to the part you know Billy's his father got divorced,
Speaker 2: and that his new mom was over there. But she
Speaker 2: told me it was a cold, so we went to McDonald's.
Speaker 3: But then he yes or no, she just like was fake.
Speaker 2: Okay, let me talk by Jack Warner's mistress. All right,
Speaker 2: First and foremost, I can't answer this question until we
Speaker 2: get down to.
Speaker 3: He says, I painted for him so we wouldn't break
Speaker 3: my hands. I did a lot of Robert Wood paintings
Speaker 3: for him. Most people don't even know who Robert Wood was. Uh,
Speaker 3: not Robert Woods, the Houston, Texas Texans wide receiver Robert Wood.
Speaker 2: Now, but Robert Woods Johnson, the MPR donor.
Speaker 3: He was an American landscape painter. So the Palm Springs
Speaker 3: auction house owner had him make about thirty Robert Wood
Speaker 3: knockoffs over a period of about two years under the
Speaker 3: threat of I'll break your hands, and the guy also
Speaker 3: had him sit in on auctions as a shill to
Speaker 3: drive the price up.
Speaker 2: Of course, yeah good.
Speaker 3: So Tetro. He learned that the copies of Originals were
Speaker 3: quote very marketable, and I was told that a lot
Speaker 3: of these paintings were going to be sold as excellent
Speaker 3: copies for people who couldn't afford Originals. Many people hang
Speaker 3: reproductions in their homes and try to pass them off
Speaker 3: as reel to their friends. It's snob appeal, which is
Speaker 3: in the United States probably the number one reason people
Speaker 3: by art who at the end, so he's like taking
Speaker 3: it down or not. She's not doing rembrands, but he's
Speaker 3: doing something that is more plausible for people. One of
Speaker 3: his clients was James Stunt, a bon vivon and the
Speaker 3: ex husband of Aris Petra Ecclestone, which.
Speaker 2: Why don't I know the name ecclestone.
Speaker 3: Well, she legitimately, as an aside, has that plastic surgery
Speaker 3: face like no cap God bless. That looks like a
Speaker 3: new kind of species.
Speaker 2: Given the Santa Monica.
Speaker 3: Clips the cheeks. Yeah it's wild, so Ecclestone. She was
Speaker 3: born in London in nineteen eighty eight. She's the daughter
Speaker 3: of model Slavica Raditch and English Formula one billionaire Bernie ecclestone.
Speaker 3: That's how you know. So Petra and James they bought
Speaker 3: the Aaron Spelling mansion in La.
Speaker 2: Oh with a gift wrapper.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, that's the one with candy spellings
Speaker 3: gift wrapping.
Speaker 2: How do we all remember that?
Speaker 3: All I remember?
Speaker 2: I couldn't tell you anything about that house but other
Speaker 2: than it has a gift wrapping exctly.
Speaker 3: So what did James Stunt do for a living? He
Speaker 3: was a gold bullion dealer, that's not hanky, and he
Speaker 3: got he got all that like plastic surgery thing going
Speaker 3: on to but his has that like slightly like melting
Speaker 3: silly putty thing going God bless. I wish him the best, godless,
Speaker 3: except not really. Because Stunt the gold bullion dealer. He
Speaker 3: was one of a defendants in the biggest money laundering
Speaker 3: trial in British criminal history. Oh good for it was
Speaker 3: a pretty sophisticated two hundred and sixty six million pound operation.
Speaker 3: Criminal cash was deposited in a bank account of a
Speaker 3: Bradford gold dealer named Fowler Oldfield. Okay, right, So the
Speaker 3: prosecutor said that they were eight defendants. They were all
Speaker 3: part of a scheme to turn the proceeds of crime
Speaker 3: into untraceable gold. Of course, so cash gets brought in
Speaker 3: from all over the UK, goes to Fowler, Oldfield and
Speaker 3: Stunt's business. They were business partners twenty fourteen to twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: and the defendants hid the money's origin by laundering it
Speaker 3: through a company bank account and using the proceeds to
Speaker 3: buy gold which was shipped to Dubai. Says all of the.
Speaker 2: Elements because is always on. Yeah, so that you know
Speaker 2: right away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Stunt gets indicted. He puts his Tony Tetro
Speaker 3: fakes into the collection of Prince now King Charles and
Speaker 3: led him to believe He led the now King to
Speaker 3: believe that they were authentic, and then he turned around
Speaker 3: and he used those paintings as collateral to get a
Speaker 3: massive loan.
Speaker 2: So he duped the sitting head of the UK, like correct,
Speaker 2: the King Charles, that cat that guy and then use
Speaker 2: that to finance a massive loan.
Speaker 3: Right, and Tony Tetro makes it really clear that he
Speaker 3: wasn't aware of any of this stuff.
Speaker 2: I didn't know.
Speaker 3: So a portrait painted by Tetro. Would you usually sell
Speaker 3: for like five k?
Speaker 2: Dude? The pairs on these people.
Speaker 3: I know, a reproduction of a Shagall, for example, would
Speaker 3: be like two thousand, okay, and a small watercolor would
Speaker 3: go for like three hundred bucks.
Speaker 2: I do think his time would be worth more.
Speaker 3: Tetro said, for three hundred For that, you get a Yamagatta,
Speaker 3: and he's talking about hero Yamagatta. Japanese artists based in
Speaker 3: La does like really vivid beautiful. So Tetro's forgery business expanded.
Speaker 3: This is how he said quote. As time passed, I
Speaker 3: became better, but I got so much more work that
Speaker 3: I hired four people to work in the studio.
Speaker 2: I was just about to ask.
Speaker 3: Each of us had a different palette. We did parts
Speaker 3: of the painting, each with his own part, and it
Speaker 3: worked out well. We did ninety five paintings big old
Speaker 3: Masters for a Texas billionaire. It took five or six years.
Speaker 3: But now I have a new customer, a friend of his,
Speaker 3: another billionaire, and that's why I was working today the
Speaker 3: whole day.
Speaker 2: So he became like the Candy Wiley or the Picassos,
Speaker 2: like I've got my.
Speaker 3: Studio turn these out let's take a break. When we
Speaker 3: come back, we'll see what forgeries old Tony had cooking
Speaker 3: out zarin.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: Hello. When we left off, Tony Tetro was churning out
Speaker 3: fake masters, selling them to random millionaires and billionaires and
Speaker 3: auction houses.
Speaker 2: Fast as a butter maker makes butter.
Speaker 3: Exactly. I want to go to these Texas billionaires houses
Speaker 3: and find out if they've got that. You know, First
Speaker 3: of all, I really don't.
Speaker 2: I was just about to say, you said that sentence.
Speaker 2: But anyway, you are a bunch of SAPs, So I
Speaker 2: would want to see if I wouldn't want.
Speaker 3: To see, like where the how they brag about it
Speaker 3: and what anyway, So one of the auction houses that
Speaker 3: he sold to was in Sherman Oaks, California, and it
Speaker 3: was owned by Marc Henry Sowiki. March of eighty nine,
Speaker 3: Siwiki gets charged with ten counts of grand theft and
Speaker 3: art forgery. We a whack bubba ba busted. He made
Speaker 3: a plea bargain in exchange for three years probation, a
Speaker 3: thousand hours of community service, and seventy eight thousand dollars
Speaker 3: in restitution. Siwiki agreed to wear a wire in an
Speaker 3: effort to catch Tetro. Oh, so siwiki he arranged a
Speaker 3: meeting with Tetro at Tetro's condo. They chatted about mutual friends,
Speaker 3: art debts, gossip, what have you. Siwiki got Tetro on
Speaker 3: tape talking about he quote did a chagole. When siwiki
Speaker 3: asked if other Chagall paintings were in the works, Tetro said, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's all on tape. Yeah, in an interview. This is
Speaker 3: how Tetro put it. It's a sad thing to say,
Speaker 3: but I learned of Chagall's death because all the messages
Speaker 3: on my answering machine were from art dealers trying to
Speaker 3: contact me requesting Chagall paintings and lithographs. That's when I
Speaker 3: knew I could do very successful in this. In fact,
Speaker 3: I bought a Rolls Royce. The next day. Everybody got
Speaker 3: mad at me because I doubled my prices. So He's
Speaker 3: just like, yeah, he asked me for a Shagall. Let
Speaker 3: me tell you why, because I'm the best at it.
Speaker 2: Shagall dropped and all of a sudden, I was like, whoa,
Speaker 2: I'm daddy about to make money.
Speaker 3: So siwiki, he testified that he saw Tetro practicing the
Speaker 3: signatures of the original artists on scrap paper and notepads
Speaker 3: and then like on the backs of damaged artwork.
Speaker 2: But he doesn't do that. I mean my dark chest
Speaker 2: Brock is work.
Speaker 3: So siwiki. He told authorities that he did about one
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars of business with Tetro between eighty four
Speaker 3: and eighty nine. He sold hundreds of works by Tetro
Speaker 3: passed off his Ali Mirro Yamagatta. So he's just churning.
Speaker 2: Smart market though.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, as a result of this recording, though, Tetro's
Speaker 3: condo was raided by county investigators. He was arrested and
Speaker 3: charged with thirty eight felony counts of forging lithographs of
Speaker 3: paintings by Mark Schagal Mirro Rockwell.
Speaker 2: He's doing Norman Rockwells singer rock Well.
Speaker 3: Someone was watching him, twenty nine counts of forging Hero Yamagata.
Speaker 3: Remember Gary Helton, the La County District Attorney's investigators. Yeah,
Speaker 3: a little call back. He conducted a sixteen person raid
Speaker 3: on the condo. Tetro's lithographs and paintings were loaded into
Speaker 3: one van and a steakbed truck, just like there were
Speaker 3: so many this like this condo was like three levels.
Speaker 2: When you said steakbed truck for a moment, because it
Speaker 2: was you saying it, I had to picture a truck
Speaker 2: with a bed that was a stake.
Speaker 3: With a giant curtains, the wooden fence.
Speaker 2: Did you pull out No, total.
Speaker 3: That the truck of the bed at the bed of
Speaker 3: the truck. But it's a cartoon stake.
Speaker 2: Cartoons steak. There was a cartoon wolf looking at it
Speaker 2: like I'm gonna.
Speaker 3: Eat Yeah, So yeah, they just throw it. They threw
Speaker 3: it on a comically large cartoon steak. Helton said he
Speaker 3: found Tetro's pieces on display at the Carol Lawrence Galleries
Speaker 3: in Beverly Hills, Studio forty seven in New York, and
Speaker 3: at galleries in Japan. So he's like, I have scoured
Speaker 3: the earth during the raid Cleveland. Some of Tetro's Yamagotta
Speaker 3: pieces were overlooked, weren't h Tetro turned around and sold
Speaker 3: those to old friends, including Ken Kettner, a mortgage bank.
Speaker 3: What are you gonna get right? Here's what Ketner had
Speaker 3: to say. I have a couple of real chagalls and
Speaker 3: some of Tony's chagalls, and I have a lot of
Speaker 3: fun with them. No one can tell the difference. I
Speaker 3: also have a genuine Yamagatda that cost me seventy five
Speaker 3: hundred dollars. After his arrest, Tony sold me five or
Speaker 3: six of his Yama goddas for one thousand dollars. For
Speaker 3: all of them aren't bad and they were definitely purchased
Speaker 3: as tetros cat nern.
Speaker 2: Just sounds like that guy's a liar.
Speaker 3: I have a lot of fun with it.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, fun with it. I just lay down on
Speaker 2: my bed. I cover myself with them on paintings.
Speaker 3: Giggles. Why were some of the pieces overlooked? You're wondering, Well.
Speaker 2: Were some of the pieces over Let me refer to
Speaker 2: I'm wondering.
Speaker 3: Let me refer you to one of your favorite Reddit posts.
Speaker 2: Oh of course, please the one where the.
Speaker 3: Person is living with their girlfriend in a house that
Speaker 3: the girlfriend owns, and they find out the girlfriend has
Speaker 3: a secret room.
Speaker 2: Actually my.
Speaker 3: Secret room, living together for three years. Didn't know about
Speaker 3: the secret room.
Speaker 2: How I love it?
Speaker 3: I know you do well.
Speaker 2: That in the beans and these are my favorites. So
Speaker 2: you ask, is it my birthday?
Speaker 3: I want you to picture it? You are an official
Speaker 3: Tony Tetro copy of a Salvador Dolli piece. You've been
Speaker 3: in this dark, secret room in Tetro's house for a while.
Speaker 3: You normally hear laughter and funky disco music coming through
Speaker 3: the walls. Not lately. The other day you heard a
Speaker 3: terrible racket, a bunch of heavy footsteps, drawers being opened
Speaker 3: and slammed, piles of stuff being pushed off a desk
Speaker 3: to the ground, breaking glass, wallpaper being torn from the walls.
Speaker 3: You were terrified. After what seemed like forever, the noise stopped.
Speaker 3: A couple of days went by. Then you heard it,
Speaker 3: the sound of Tony Tetro's feet, your papa. You hear
Speaker 3: him push the button to open the door to his
Speaker 3: secret room, where you and your scores of other fakes
Speaker 3: rest quietly on the walls and stack neatly on the floor.
Speaker 3: The door creaks opened, and there's Tony Tetro. He and
Speaker 3: a friend and a crew of six day laborers rush
Speaker 3: into the room and scoop up the paintings you included.
Speaker 3: Tony Tetro grabs you himself. You try to whisper to him,
Speaker 3: I least you dann whisper at zaren whisper, I missed you, daddy,
Speaker 3: do it?
Speaker 2: I missed you daddy.
Speaker 3: There it is uh, you go unheard. But as you
Speaker 3: as you get tossed into a truck and you peel
Speaker 3: out into the cool night, you know you are safe.
Speaker 3: Yama Goatta thought Tetro's copies weren't that bad quote. I
Speaker 3: just don't know why he doesn't establish his own way.
Speaker 3: Having talent to paint in general is one thing, but
Speaker 3: artists must also have a passion for creation before painting exists.
Speaker 3: I paint a very tranquil image. It represents my feelings,
Speaker 3: my senses, my memories, and you can't just copy those.
Speaker 3: Not being able to copy my passion and my energy
Speaker 3: means people buyers can't find it in his copies. Yes,
Speaker 3: hero Yamagata, I'm right there with you. That's my feeling.
Speaker 2: As a copy I have to dig it.
Speaker 3: So according to Tetro quote, I enjoyed doing a renoir
Speaker 3: and using his pastel colors, learning how he would fuse
Speaker 3: everything around the subject until everything was blurred except the
Speaker 3: subject's face. Then he'd put a splash of color over here,
Speaker 3: and I'd understand why he did it. I didn't understand
Speaker 3: why he did it just by looking at it. I
Speaker 3: never really had a tremendous desire to be a famous artist,
Speaker 3: but I enjoyed painting and I enjoyed copying. Yeah, there
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can't really argue with his logic. Look,
Speaker 2: I didn't want to be at the top of the mountain.
Speaker 2: I just like walking.
Speaker 3: He didn't like being called a forger though, Well, yeah,
Speaker 3: he said quote forgery indicates an intent to defraud. And
Speaker 3: I never sold anything as real. I prefer the term reproductions.
Speaker 3: In my definition, an exact copy as close to original
Speaker 3: as you can do. Every one of my friends knew
Speaker 3: what I did. You know, what do you do for
Speaker 3: a living? I copy masters. I even had business cards
Speaker 3: which said Anthony tetro Art reproductions. I sold them as
Speaker 3: reproductions or emulations done by me. I was very specific
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 2: I don't believe that.
Speaker 3: I don't need that.
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, so your friends know this. Do your
Speaker 2: clients notice the ones who are paying the money. I
Speaker 2: understand that you got word around.
Speaker 3: It could be discovered in the Grand tradition.
Speaker 2: Are you lying by a mission? Sirs?
Speaker 3: Question of all of our rude rude criminals on this show.
Speaker 2: He wrote a memoir, of course, the most literate group
Speaker 2: in the world, by.
Speaker 3: The way, and of course it's called con Slash Artist,
Speaker 3: The Life and Crimes of the World's Greatest Art Forger. Now,
Speaker 3: this man just said he's not a forger, but he
Speaker 3: titled his.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It was co written by gi Imperio Ambrosi, which is
Speaker 3: a great name.
Speaker 2: Totally, I'm all about that. I come across Jimpero.
Speaker 3: Ambrosi said, quote, you always think of the forger duping
Speaker 3: the client, but in this case the client was the dealer,
Speaker 3: and the dealer would commission him to do it. They
Speaker 3: just say, hey, I need fifty picassos, give me twenty moros.
Speaker 3: I need ten dollis.
Speaker 2: So the client was the dupe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was saying that it's all on the all
Speaker 3: on the art dealers. This is Tetro said. I started
Speaker 3: making a lot of lithographs of some other artists whose
Speaker 3: name I can't say. I made so many of his
Speaker 3: lithographs and I sold them to this big art dealer.
Speaker 3: He sold them to galleries all over the place, and
Speaker 3: then he the original artist, found out I did them.
Speaker 3: He went to all the art dealers and galleries and
Speaker 3: went out of his way to tell them to watch
Speaker 3: out for me. Then they contact me and wanted me
Speaker 3: to work for them. That's how it really started.
Speaker 2: And why would Banksy do that?
Speaker 3: I love that he won't tell them, you know, to
Speaker 3: remain nameless.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now I'm curious who that is so much.
Speaker 3: Tetro a fixture in La. He cruises around and either
Speaker 3: is Rolls Royce Silver Spirit or he's Tutelin and one
Speaker 3: of the two Ferraris he owned. He had a Lamborghini.
Speaker 2: Does he live? Do we know anything about the identifying
Speaker 2: aspects of these cars?
Speaker 3: Well he is a little bit. So he owned multiple
Speaker 3: exotic cars. He lived in that custom decorated tri level
Speaker 3: condo in Claremont. He whisked away all the time to
Speaker 3: roam Paris, money Carlo. It wasn't really the life of an.
Speaker 2: Art forger No or like Robin Leech.
Speaker 3: There's money in it, but not that much money. So
Speaker 3: rumor starts circulating that he's a drug dealer. This is how.
Speaker 2: Talk.
Speaker 3: It's funds to it. So he said, quote, I even
Speaker 3: had a friend, this girl, one of my friends would say,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, I get all my drugs from Tony, and
Speaker 3: I'd go, why the hell would you say something like that?
Speaker 3: Then I'd get people calling me for cocaine and I'd
Speaker 3: be all, why are you calling me? I don't deal drugs,
Speaker 3: and they'd go, oh yeah, and then click they'd hang
Speaker 3: up and be mad at me. This one time, this big,
Speaker 3: big drug dealer, we were in a bar and this
Speaker 3: is called Magnolia's Peach and where we walked out and
Speaker 3: he says, Tony, I want to show you something, and
Speaker 3: he opened up the trunk of his Toyota Tursell. I
Speaker 3: think it was the first time they made the Toyota Trussell.
Speaker 3: Do they still make them? I don't know, but it
Speaker 3: was the most inexpensive Toyota ever made, I don't know,
Speaker 3: and it was small. He opened up the trunk and
Speaker 3: there was nothing but bricks of cocaine in there in
Speaker 3: a car that costs five thousand and seven thousand, And
Speaker 3: I go, why are you showing this to me? And
Speaker 3: he goes and he goes, oh, I don't know. I
Speaker 3: thought you might like it. By the way, if I
Speaker 3: don't make it home, you're dead. Why would I say
Speaker 3: a word? But they got a kick out of it
Speaker 3: because I got all the heat, just going.
Speaker 2: Through the world. Why are you asking him? Why are
Speaker 2: you Why is this happening here?
Speaker 3: He's so unhinged to me, you start.
Speaker 2: Making the Toyota Choseell, by the way, was that.
Speaker 3: He had no visible source of interest, A naive.
Speaker 2: Child wandering innocently through the world.
Speaker 3: No inheritance, no apparent career. He's not a lot of winner,
Speaker 3: so he just has questions. I would automatically assume drugs,
Speaker 3: and I feel like saying that all your friends call
Speaker 3: you asking for drugs.
Speaker 2: Could they be a jiggowe?
Speaker 3: But you don't have them. It's a cover for when
Speaker 3: you get busted completely. It's like his paintings. They're reproductions.
Speaker 3: People are calling me by accident, and.
Speaker 2: Its happened to always be at the junction of crime.
Speaker 2: There are two crimes tending together. What happened to be there?
Speaker 3: I didn't want that guy to drive a terceill of
Speaker 3: coke tiles like me.
Speaker 2: He just showed up. I barely knew the guy his.
Speaker 3: Okay, So for this is a Tetris says again. For
Speaker 3: well over ten years, every cop in this valley and
Speaker 3: many people who didn't know me person, we're certain I
Speaker 3: was a drug dealer. I must have heard it myself
Speaker 3: conservatively three hundred times. And the more I defended myself,
Speaker 3: the more I wasn't believed. Drive down the street in
Speaker 3: a Ferrari and a cop is certain you're a drug dealer,
Speaker 3: and you're constantly harassed, constantly getting tickets for nothing, constantly
Speaker 3: getting your car searched. So there was some satisfaction, even
Speaker 3: some pride when I was arrested that they finally, these
Speaker 3: idiots knew that I was an artist. Final I got
Speaker 3: fosted for the right thing. Enter Mark Manning, chief press
Speaker 3: agent for Exclusive News Relations of Los Angeles. Quote, we
Speaker 3: specialize in celebrity repositioning people who have been misunderstood by
Speaker 3: the public and the media.
Speaker 2: I'm a spin doctor.
Speaker 3: So they repped Tetro. But there was a fee, of course,
Speaker 3: of course he paid them with an oil of Winston Churchill.
Speaker 3: Wait what, and then a percentage of the proceeds from
Speaker 3: the sale of a replica of a nineteen fifty eight
Speaker 3: Ferrari Testosa racecar that Tetro spent six years and several
Speaker 3: thousand dollars building.
Speaker 2: So he not only makes fake paintings, he also replicates
Speaker 2: ferraris exactly.
Speaker 3: So there were only two TR fifty eights built and
Speaker 3: neither of them survived racing. So Tetro he purchased an
Speaker 3: old Ferrari streetcar to get the chassis, the engine and
Speaker 3: the transmission. Then he shortened and narrowed the frame and
Speaker 3: restored the engine to racing conditions. This is how he
Speaker 3: said it quote. I went to finite detail in recreating
Speaker 3: everything exactly the way it was originally. It is a
Speaker 3: perfect recreation. So, like you're saying, just like his paintings,
Speaker 3: he fakes a Ferrari. Yeah, so he sold that and
Speaker 3: that's how he paid for the press agent back. You know,
Speaker 3: we get back there. Tetro pleads not guilty to conspiracy
Speaker 3: and forgery at a preliminary hearing where the siwiki tape
Speaker 3: was played. We can make it wat yep. On June seventh,
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety one, mistrial was declared after the jurors of
Speaker 3: the LA Superior Court said to Judge John Henny that
Speaker 3: there was a deadlock and they were unable to reach
Speaker 3: a verdict. So the trial gone on for a month
Speaker 3: and they deliberated for seventeen hours. According to Deputy District
Speaker 3: Attorney Riva Getz quote. Obviously, I'm very sorry that the
Speaker 3: jurors could not agree on a verdict, but my confidence
Speaker 3: in the case remains.
Speaker 2: That's why they call me.
Speaker 3: Oh and then went on to say that some of
Speaker 3: the jurors quote felt the tape was not as clear
Speaker 3: as they would have liked. H So the Suwiki tape
Speaker 3: didn't bring what they thought it would. As for Tetro quote,
Speaker 3: the prosecution would put ads in the paper looking for victims.
Speaker 3: Did you buy a fake Schagal? Did you buy a
Speaker 3: fake Dolly? Did you buy a fake Moro? Did you
Speaker 3: buy a fake Rembrand? Did you buy fake anything?
Speaker 2: Sucker?
Speaker 3: And so we expected like five to ten people to
Speaker 3: come forward grieving. Nobody came. I had a hung jury.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: So he may have had a hung jury then, but
Speaker 3: his legal woes were far from over. Let's take a
Speaker 3: break and let these ads soothe our souls. When we
Speaker 3: come back, I'll tell you what happens next. For old Tone,
Speaker 3: look welcome. Hey, what's it so Tony Tetrom He got
Speaker 3: a hung jury, but the prosecutors wouldn't give up. They
Speaker 3: retried him. He was released on ten thousand dollars bail
Speaker 3: with orders to return to court on July first for
Speaker 3: further motions. So in that time he just liquidates his
Speaker 3: assets in order to fund his defense. He sold the
Speaker 3: exotic cars, he sold the tri level condo. He moved
Speaker 3: to an apartment in Upland, California, which is maybe not
Speaker 3: as pascious. Clear he started he started driving a Honda Civic. Oh,
Speaker 3: life was different, a little bit different.
Speaker 2: Was this like a recreated Honda Ci to the details?
Speaker 3: It was on like you know, a Hugo's train. So
Speaker 3: here's what Tetra said about this time.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, so good.
Speaker 3: Quote. Robert Shapiro was my attorney. Oh yes, I was
Speaker 3: his client. Just before oj I canned him, he wanted
Speaker 3: to just plea me to the judge. I said, no,
Speaker 3: I want my day in court. I'll tell you a
Speaker 3: tidbit of info that you'd probably never get in the
Speaker 3: Australian press. Bob Shapiro, he never ever ever went to trial.
Speaker 3: His thing. All over the US, every attorney knew that
Speaker 3: Bob's thing was he would plea bargain his clients. That
Speaker 3: was his thing. Oj originally went to Howard Wiseman, the
Speaker 3: best attorney in LA. He's the one who got Bob
Speaker 3: Dolorian off, the guy who made cars. Then OJ went
Speaker 3: to Bob Shapiro, and Shapiro smelled fame and fortune and
Speaker 3: got his dream team together and they went to trial.
Speaker 3: But he wasn't going to go to trial for me.
Speaker 3: I wanted my day in court. But anyway, they charged
Speaker 3: me for everything. Two thousand dollars for incomplete telephone calls, incomplete,
Speaker 3: not counting the completed calls. I spent thousands of dollars
Speaker 3: for parking to go to court, and they just hosed me.
Speaker 3: I didn't make a penny for four and a half years.
Speaker 3: All I did was spend, spend, spend. They'd say, Oh,
Speaker 3: I need another twenty thousand dollars, I need another thirty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars for this and this. So half a million
Speaker 3: dollars later, I'm sitting there. I have a hung jury
Speaker 3: and they're going to try me again. I got no money,
Speaker 3: I have no work. So they offered me a year.
Speaker 3: I said I'll take it. If i'd have gone with Shapiro,
Speaker 3: he would have gotten me a year and a half.
Speaker 3: I should have done that. I would have kept everything.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So he never listened to Bob Shapiro.
Speaker 2: What a weird assessment of the American legals. I know,
Speaker 2: I know, I can't argue with them, but totally so.
Speaker 3: He may have been living in Upland and tootling around
Speaker 3: in a Honda, but he kept his home decor game tight.
Speaker 3: He had a large framed paper sculpture, an original by
Speaker 3: Bill Mack, over his sofa. Have you heard of Bill Mack?
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so.
Speaker 3: I hadn't either, So I checked out his website and
Speaker 3: I just can't. I can't build Mac. Here's this about
Speaker 3: me on the home page of his website. Bill Mack
Speaker 3: has no mentors. There is nowhere to go to learn
Speaker 3: his sculpture techniques. No one teaches his sculpture technique. Sculptor
Speaker 3: Bill Mack works in such a rare art form that
Speaker 3: coming up with a name to describe it has been
Speaker 3: only slightly less arduous than creating the art itself. Bill
Speaker 3: Mack Sculpture, simply put, is emotional elegance defined in sculpture.
Speaker 2: Emotional please emotional.
Speaker 3: Please go look at Bill Max's website. Emotional, Yeah, look
Speaker 3: at his website.
Speaker 2: I handle this much emotional, can't. It's going to blow
Speaker 2: your hands like inelegant emotion it's just like, I.
Speaker 3: Just can't just screaming, Tetro. Could He had him over
Speaker 3: the a permit. He also had a faux lalique crystal sculpture. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he had recast bronzes that he had traded for one
Speaker 3: of his chagalls. And he had a lithograph that had
Speaker 3: a genuine John Lennon autograph on it. All right, so Tetro.
Speaker 3: He also had an enormous painting of the Death of
Speaker 3: d'Artagnan that he paid one thousand dollars for.
Speaker 2: Huh, the Death of d'Artagnan. Why does you assigned to
Speaker 2: the Fourth Musketeer.
Speaker 3: Well, no, he didn't want the painting. He wanted the
Speaker 3: canvas because he said he was going to pay he
Speaker 3: was going to paint a version of Rembrandts The Night
Speaker 3: Watch over it.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, so good, so Tetro.
Speaker 3: He also had Dolly's Nuclear Disintegration of the Head of
Speaker 3: a Virgin And despite the agent look of the piece
Speaker 3: like it had a Dolly signature, a plaque that gives
Speaker 3: the date of the creation of the painting is nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty three. It's actually a Tetrod. Yeah, he said, it's
Speaker 3: not a copy of Dolly's work, but an emulation. Quote.
Speaker 3: I prefer doing emulations more than copying. When asked about
Speaker 3: the plaque that had Dolly's name in nineteen fifty three
Speaker 3: on it, he said, quote, job worth doing is worth doing?
Speaker 2: Well, you say that all the time. I do so.
Speaker 3: According to Tetro, quote, I think we are going to
Speaker 3: show in essence that I painted and other people did
Speaker 3: the crime. I never represented them as real. Other people
Speaker 3: sold My stuff is real.
Speaker 2: What are you okay? You looked into this guy? You
Speaker 2: tell me this st It seems like he's positioned himself
Speaker 2: at the crossroads of crimes and acting like I'm just
Speaker 2: happy I'm here directing traffic and innocent cop. Are you
Speaker 2: mad at the cop when there's a crocity, I'm.
Speaker 3: Up front there, the crooked one. Do you believe it? No?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: But I love it. I love it. So Tetro's attorney
Speaker 3: not Robert Shapiro. I think he had a public defender
Speaker 3: at this point. I bet he said. Tetro was obviously
Speaker 3: not trying to sell his pieces as authentic. Just look
Speaker 3: at the prices, because he would sell the pieces to
Speaker 3: Suwiki for three hundred dollars five hundred dollars and SWICKI
Speaker 3: would then turn around and sell the pieces in his
Speaker 3: gallery for anywhere between fifteen hundred and seventy five hundred.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so clearly there's the markup.
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's what Tetro said about that. I want to
Speaker 3: also emphasize that most of the work that I do
Speaker 3: was not for the art industry at all. Art brokers
Speaker 3: contacted me. They came to me because they found that
Speaker 3: I could copy anything and emulate anything, and they said
Speaker 3: there's a market for excellent copies. So I started doing
Speaker 3: them and in fact developed a printing method that is unique,
Speaker 3: and I did colored lithographs Chagall, dalis Moreau. How is
Speaker 3: that not for the art industry if you're doing this
Speaker 3: for the art.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, I mean, like I'm gonna put these criminal terms,
Speaker 2: I can very well understand if you're looking to get
Speaker 2: busted in say pot right, pot growers are easy to
Speaker 2: bust because one, they make for great headlines. Well, we
Speaker 2: went right to the source. They have to sit put,
Speaker 2: you know what their habits are going to be. Everybody
Speaker 2: else is hard moving targets to hit. So he is
Speaker 2: the one. I'm like, these dealers, you got to prove that,
Speaker 2: you got to audit all their stuff. It's so much
Speaker 2: more work. Nobody wants to do that. You get him.
Speaker 2: You're like, look, welcome what we did. Yeah, right up
Speaker 2: the headlines. Exactly Why does he not get that? That's
Speaker 2: what I know. Otherwise he may just be lying and
Speaker 2: pretending like he doesn't get anything. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But still so he was up against an eight year sentence. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and the prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Reva gets quote, gets
Speaker 3: her man, he has taken the work of these artists
Speaker 3: and made the market unreliable and thrown into question for
Speaker 3: most people, the viability of the entire graphics market.
Speaker 2: A little bit of that lady.
Speaker 3: So in eighty nine he gets convicted for conspiracy and
Speaker 3: sixty seven counts of art forgery. He did an interview
Speaker 3: in ninety one and he said, quote, I would like
Speaker 3: to say to you right now that I'm never going
Speaker 3: to paint again for a living. Yet I can't say that.
Speaker 3: I can't yet, I can't say that to be truthful.
Speaker 3: I would like to you want you can bet I'd
Speaker 3: stamp copy or reproduction or emulation all over the back
Speaker 3: of it. He's not going to stop. February ninety three,
Speaker 3: he pleads no contest to one count of attempted theft,
Speaker 3: account of conspiracy, six counts of forgery. He gets released
Speaker 3: from jail in ninety four, and his sentence included two
Speaker 3: hundred hours of community service six months in a work
Speaker 3: release program to paint prototypes for traffic safety manuals. It
Speaker 3: is five years of probation. And in order to paint
Speaker 3: a mural on a public building, They're like, let's put
Speaker 3: this to work.
Speaker 2: Let's make this work for us, those civic improvement.
Speaker 3: He also has to obey a court order to sign
Speaker 3: all of his works with his name only. And this
Speaker 3: is how he's like loving this quote all of them
Speaker 3: asked to not put my stamp on the back. Oh
Speaker 3: my stamp. I have to put that on everything. I'm
Speaker 3: the only person in the United States that has to.
Speaker 3: I'm ordered by the courts. I put three big stamps
Speaker 3: on them so they don't get go into commerce.
Speaker 2: Yes, he's like a court guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah. None of the art dealers that he worked with
Speaker 3: had any charges pressed against them. When Tetro was asked
Speaker 3: what happened to them, he said, quote nothing. They all
Speaker 3: lawyered up, waiting for me to rat or drop a dime,
Speaker 3: and they all lawyered up in nothing, and they certainly
Speaker 3: wouldn't commission me to do any work. When I got
Speaker 3: out of jail, they wouldn't talk to me. And then
Speaker 3: about ten years after there were only two of them
Speaker 3: that I talked to. One of them bought me a
Speaker 3: new Mercedes. I didn't have a car.
Speaker 2: Like, what story? Do you always do cocaine before you
Speaker 2: tell a story? Is that? Okay?
Speaker 3: Now go well? He never lost the support of his friends.
Speaker 3: Do you remember mortgage banker Ken Kettner? This is it
Speaker 3: has a little fun with it. He said. I like
Speaker 3: Tony very much, a gracious guy who's always been there
Speaker 3: when you need him. And it went beyond Ken. Seven
Speaker 3: hundred of Tetro's friends came together for a birthday celebration
Speaker 3: in an upscale hotel with a birthday cake that had
Speaker 3: a one eyed Tetro painting a Picasso. Okay, so he
Speaker 3: currently Tetro currently creates master copies for a list of
Speaker 3: exclusive clients from his studio in southern California. Good for
Speaker 3: Him Focus, a BBC Science and Technology magazine, produced an
Speaker 3: article instructing people how to create their own fake pieces
Speaker 3: using Tetro's techniques like how to Wow twenty ten, he
Speaker 3: legally changed his name to Antonio Montana Tetro.
Speaker 2: Why Montana?
Speaker 3: Because he went to Costa Rica and when he got there,
Speaker 3: all of his friends said, Hey, Tony Montana's in town.
Speaker 3: Tony Montana from Scarface.
Speaker 2: Oh got it, and so he wanted to add it.
Speaker 2: He's like, I gotta put that in there.
Speaker 3: I'm not a drug dealer. I'm just gonna changed my
Speaker 3: name to Tony to Montana, the.
Speaker 2: Greatest fictional drug dealer ever represented on films? What in
Speaker 2: the what?
Speaker 3: What even is this? Twenty eleven, there was a competition
Speaker 3: announced the Australian Art series. Hotel Group had this thing
Speaker 3: for guests, like they could they could get a chance
Speaker 3: to pick an original Warhol valued at like twenty thousand
Speaker 3: dollars from a row of fakes produced by quote the
Speaker 3: world's greatest living art forger. So whoever picked the original
Speaker 3: Warhol could keep it. But if you chose incorrectly, you
Speaker 3: would win that Warhol by Tony Tetro.
Speaker 2: Did you get to buy it? Did again?
Speaker 3: Twenty grand Well, the contest was controversial. Yeah, it sounds
Speaker 3: like so Will Dieg, the chief executive of the Art series.
Speaker 3: Hotel claimed that the contest was endorsed by the Warhol Foundation,
Speaker 3: and what do they care about that? They said, as
Speaker 3: long as the advertising material doesn't use any Warhol images,
Speaker 3: go for it, which, wow, do.
Speaker 2: Keep that relevant? We don't care.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the Warhol Foundation said they were quote appalled
Speaker 3: to learn that a hotel would think it wise to
Speaker 3: commission forgery in an attempt to market its services.
Speaker 2: Come.
Speaker 3: So they probably made it like you could win a
Speaker 3: Warhol and they're not gonna say, surrounded by faking Tetro's.
Speaker 3: So Tetros still hustling. That memoir was twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Every day I'm hustling.
Speaker 3: I'm going to add con slash artists to the book
Speaker 3: club for sure, staying even more relevant. Twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: he started a Reddit.
Speaker 2: Thread dija twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: This year, Yeah, this year he started a Reddit thread
Speaker 3: where he announced a documentary about his life called The
Speaker 3: Royal Stunt.
Speaker 2: I don't believe it exists.
Speaker 3: Yeah, me neither. So right, what are our final words
Speaker 3: from old Tony Tetroeh?
Speaker 2: Please quote today?
Speaker 3: I'm no longer a criminal. Today on my criminal record
Speaker 3: it says not guilty and I have nothing on my record.
Speaker 3: I was so lily white. I can't stand myself. I've
Speaker 3: done nothing wrong.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 3: What's your ridiculous takeaways? Aaron?
Speaker 2: I believe it was once said I knew John Kennedy.
Speaker 2: John Kennedy was a friend of mine, and you, sir,
Speaker 2: are no John Kennedy. I would like to say that
Speaker 2: about Elmer de Hory. I once heard a great story
Speaker 2: about Elmer d'hoy and now I've heard a story about you, sir,
Speaker 2: and you are no Elmer de'hory.
Speaker 3: That's beautiful, excellent.
Speaker 2: What's yours? Elizabeth? Easy? This is you know, he just
Speaker 2: flows out of the mouth.
Speaker 3: Yes. I love when we have these threads that lead
Speaker 3: to I'm looking for what's going to spin off of
Speaker 3: Tony Tetro Because we had Clifford Irving totally Elmire de horri.
Speaker 3: Now we got Tony Tetro connected like I kind of
Speaker 3: feel like it's going to be the Ecclestone thing.
Speaker 2: Probably you got a three people to look into that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I love these chains that they create.
Speaker 2: That's it. Maybe Kent Kenter maybe dig into him.
Speaker 3: Can He's so fun. I just have fun with him.
Speaker 3: It's fun painting it.
Speaker 2: Turns out he's like something crazy for it, like done
Speaker 2: something horrific we can't even.
Speaker 3: Talk about, just like we have to bleep out his
Speaker 3: name on Future Anyway, That's all I have. Okay, you
Speaker 3: can find us online at ridiculous crime dot com. There's merch.
Speaker 3: I think I've got some T shirt ideas.
Speaker 2: Oh you got a new one?
Speaker 1: Do it?
Speaker 2: Do it.
Speaker 3: We're also at ridiculous Crime on Is Twitter still a thing?
Speaker 3: Does it exist? It's called x No I'm saying, but
Speaker 3: just in general, is it still up?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I know it's still there if you want to
Speaker 2: go get like a horrific Yeah.
Speaker 3: I deactivated. I deactivated Twitter.
Speaker 2: I'm not on there anymore.
Speaker 3: Give us. We're on Instagram. I think we're on threads.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't go on any of this.
Speaker 3: Don't email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: Do leave a talk back on iHeart app. We've been
Speaker 3: getting some good totally. Yeah, there you go. Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 3: is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and
Speaker 3: edited by Dave Tonio Montana Cousten. Research is by Marissa
Speaker 3: Brown and Andrea Song Sharpen Tear, co authors of research
Speaker 3: my life learning about these chuckleheads. The theme song is
Speaker 3: by Thomas quit Plan On my Phone, Lee and Travis
Speaker 3: want to buy a Toyota Tursel Dutton. Executive producers are
Speaker 3: Plea Bargain expert Ben Bolin and Kincaid authenticator Noel Brown.
Speaker 2: Ridicous Crime Say It One More Timequeous Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
Speaker 1: from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.