Speaker 1: Galling mystifying. I think I would get me to a nunnery.
Speaker 1: I mean I would go and do penance, you know,
Speaker 1: go work for some nonprofit in the art world for
Speaker 1: the rest of my career and try to atone for
Speaker 1: whatever had happened. In the grim aftermath of the closing
Speaker 1: of the Nler Gallery, ten lawsuits were filed by cheated customers,
Speaker 1: most notably Domenico and Eleanor desle There saga began with
Speaker 1: a shriek in a Miami hotel room after reading the
Speaker 1: story of the fake Lagrange Pollock in The New York Times.
Speaker 1: Most former customers of the now shuttered gallery just wanted
Speaker 1: to recoup their losses. Investigators concluded that no fewer than
Speaker 1: sixty fake paintings had been created at the direction of
Speaker 1: Fara Rosales. At trial, an accounting expert would testify that
Speaker 1: Freedman and dealer Julian Weissman had sold their clients seventy
Speaker 1: million dollars in fakes, yielding a net income of thirty
Speaker 1: three point seven million dollars for Knodler and generating more
Speaker 1: than ten million dollars in commissions for Anne. This was
Speaker 1: in addition to her salary estimated to be four hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars annually. Michael Hammer took his own four hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars salary plus of both galleries, a near limitless fund,
Speaker 1: spewing cash to eight thirty one his private holding company.
Speaker 1: As for Rosales, no taxes had been paid from her
Speaker 1: sales to Knodler, so profit estimates varied. The New York
Speaker 1: Times would later declare that Rosa Alice had taken in
Speaker 1: about twenty six million dollars from her sale of paintings
Speaker 1: to the two dealers. That was all money that would
Speaker 1: have to be disgorged, along with some twelve point five
Speaker 1: million dollars due to the i R s. Surprisingly, one
Speaker 1: of the first to settle was Pierre Lagrange himself in
Speaker 1: October two thou twelve. Shouting from the rooftops had earned
Speaker 1: Lagrange some admiration, but also his share of ridicule among
Speaker 1: collectors for buying a painting without doing due diligence. He
Speaker 1: had vowed to get his seventeen million dollars back, but Artsy,
Speaker 1: the online art magazine, published a rumor It's settled for
Speaker 1: six point four million dollars, being first in line for
Speaker 1: a refund, had its advantages. There was likely more money
Speaker 1: in the galleries till to be had. The Desoles, by contrast,
Speaker 1: felt bound by a sense of mission. Their lawsuit was
Speaker 1: aimed at making the true public in a civil trial.
Speaker 1: Having a judge and jury declare FIRA's forgery ring to
Speaker 1: be nothing less than a racketeering conspiracy was the real
Speaker 1: prize for them. Assistant District Attorney Jason Hernandez was taking
Speaker 1: a very different approach. He was trying to make a
Speaker 1: criminal case of the notetor's dealings. Surprisingly, it was far
Speaker 1: from a slam dunk. What we were doing previously is
Speaker 1: sort of your art fraud one on one playbook. You've
Speaker 1: got to prove that the paintings are fake, and you've
Speaker 1: got to prove that someone who sold them knew that
Speaker 1: they were fake. But it was very clear that this
Speaker 1: was going to be especially difficult following our usual kind
Speaker 1: of playbook in this case, because well, there were an
Speaker 1: unusually large number of prominent people who seemingly We're going
Speaker 1: to stand by the paintings and say that they were real.
Speaker 1: That is uncommon, and I could see right away, well,
Speaker 1: you know, how do you get over that? Because if
Speaker 1: the person selling them is showing them to all of
Speaker 1: these esteemed people, and they're saying, yep, looks right to me,
Speaker 1: looks good to me. That's not a criminal case anymore.
Speaker 1: You're not going to be able to prove fraud that
Speaker 1: someone intended to deceive, because they'll say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: this museum director said it was good, and I mean
Speaker 1: you know, and Freeman bought one of the paintings. It
Speaker 1: was well thought out. The truth is all of the
Speaker 1: experts declined to authenticate the paintings in any official capacity.
Speaker 1: They've seen them in passing on the notors walls at
Speaker 1: cocktail parties, but none of the experts had any interest
Speaker 1: and testifying. You gotta remember it's it's a criminal case,
Speaker 1: so you have to prove your case to twelve people
Speaker 1: beyond a reasonable doubt. We weren't really getting anywhere with
Speaker 1: the conventional investigative methods, and the provenance was very difficult
Speaker 1: to di proved. Glafira was alas we know very virtually
Speaker 1: nothing about. She told nod Lern and Freedom that she
Speaker 1: was a brokera representing a family that she wouldn't disclose
Speaker 1: and I can't get hurt to disclose it, so I
Speaker 1: can't issue her a grand jury subpoena and say tell
Speaker 1: me the name. She would just assert her fit in
Speaker 1: them and right and refuse to tell me. My thought was,
Speaker 1: I can kind of through the back door figure out
Speaker 1: whether or not Glafira was Alas represents a family that
Speaker 1: owns these paintings, because if she's lying about that, that
Speaker 1: is going to be a crime that I can charge, Okay,
Speaker 1: because that's in a very important part of the provenance.
Speaker 1: Imagine if she's lying about this actually being a European
Speaker 1: family that bought these and stored them over all these decades, well,
Speaker 1: that is something I can charge her with. So she
Speaker 1: says she's a brokera she says the paintings are not hers.
Speaker 1: I could see that all the money would go from
Speaker 1: the Nobler Gallery once they would purchase them to a
Speaker 1: couple bank accounts, I think two or three in Spain.
Speaker 1: So my thought was, I'm gonna ask Spain that we
Speaker 1: have a treaty with Spain to for their bank records.
Speaker 1: And then if she is a broker, I'm going to
Speaker 1: see or whatever percentage go to the family in Europe
Speaker 1: and it's going to go to a bank account in
Speaker 1: some other country probably and then I lost that country
Speaker 1: to give me the bank records, and you might prevail there.
Speaker 1: You might actually get foreign banks to cooperate and give
Speaker 1: you records that would prove that she had been engaged
Speaker 1: in financial shenanigans. That's right, let's see where the money flows.
Speaker 1: So I took that kind of old approach. Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: follow the money to the sexier world of art fraud,
Speaker 1: where you follow the pigments and those sorts of things.
Speaker 1: And what it showed was that she was lying about
Speaker 1: who owned the paintings. She owned them, someone else owned them,
Speaker 1: but she's keeping all the money. So that gave me
Speaker 1: a fraud charge against her. Okay, you are falsely representing
Speaker 1: to the Nobler Gallery that these paintings belonged to you know,
Speaker 1: then fill in the long story what she told all
Speaker 1: that that yarn she spun about who it belonged to.
Speaker 1: I now have leverage against CFIA. I have a criminal charge.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of money, you know, many millions of
Speaker 1: dollars of paintings, so it's a significant fraud. And then
Speaker 1: on top of that, she is not reporting any of
Speaker 1: this money as income, so there is a tax charge there.
Speaker 1: Nor is she reporting the fact that she has formed
Speaker 1: bank accounts in excess of ten thousand dollars, which is
Speaker 1: another federal crime. So now the deck is stacked way
Speaker 1: high against the FIA Rosol. She's kind of got nowhere
Speaker 1: to run. I have very simple, provable, direct, strong criminal
Speaker 1: charges against her, and now I can kind of use
Speaker 1: that as pressure um to get her to talk unless
Speaker 1: she's willing to spend, you know, a lot of time
Speaker 1: in prison. One night, early in the summer of two thout,
Speaker 1: some eighteen years after his first faithful meeting with Anne
Speaker 1: at a Soho art gallery, law enforcement agents came crashing
Speaker 1: through the front doors of Carlos Andrs. Multimillion dollar home.
Speaker 1: It's very traumatic. They came actually to wake me up.
Speaker 1: It was very early in the morning, at six in
Speaker 1: the morning around the time. And then there was the squad.
Speaker 1: I was sleeping, My daughter was upstairs sleeping. She was
Speaker 1: supposed to go to Spain the next day or that
Speaker 1: day day evening. And they knocked at the door and
Speaker 1: they told me that they were the police and opened
Speaker 1: the door. And I saw them, you know, with their weapons,
Speaker 1: and and I said, can I put something on it?
Speaker 1: And they say, opened it, opened it. Or else. Of
Speaker 1: course I opened the door, I saw the I'm drawn
Speaker 1: in all over my house when they were with the
Speaker 1: way pons pointing everywhere. Uh, and then they took me
Speaker 1: and I wanted to give a hat to my daughter,
Speaker 1: so they didn't let me. Oh, so it was horrible.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a minute. Brian Scarlatto's fear as
Speaker 1: attorney and family friend took the call while out of
Speaker 1: town on a work trip. I recalled because I was
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas for work, and my wife called to
Speaker 1: say that Glad had been arrested and that there was
Speaker 1: a story in the newspaper, which you know, I looked
Speaker 1: up on the internet, and um, you know, at this
Speaker 1: point had been a friend of ours for a while,
Speaker 1: so I felt like I should look into it since
Speaker 1: you know, it is kind of my area of the law.
Speaker 1: Glafi had just been arrested and so um, we had
Speaker 1: to go into jail to speak to her. But what
Speaker 1: we found out is is that she had really been
Speaker 1: arrested for tax evasion, sort of like al capolm and
Speaker 1: the government couldn't get them, you know, for organized crime.
Speaker 1: They just followed the money, and in Glafira's case, the
Speaker 1: government was able to follow the money. By now, after
Speaker 1: living in Sand's Point for years, had you come to
Speaker 1: suspect Laphia and Carlos might be art thieves. I did
Speaker 1: not suspect anything. They did seem to be very successful.
Speaker 1: But it was extremely shocking, and you know, and it's
Speaker 1: shocking whenever you hear about anybody being arrested, but certainly
Speaker 1: a very nice woman in her you know, later fifties
Speaker 1: like Fra Brian visited Glafira in prison soon after her arrest.
Speaker 1: It was a sobering moment for the family attorney who
Speaker 1: had come to know Carlos and Fia. Well, you go
Speaker 1: in and it's very difficult to get in, and Gafa
Speaker 1: had just been arrested, and in fact, she didn't have
Speaker 1: enough money for shoes because they take your shoes away
Speaker 1: and you need a commissary account then to buy shoes,
Speaker 1: and so she was wearing paper slippers and it was
Speaker 1: very very distraught, you know, just didn't know what was
Speaker 1: going to go on Carlo's head, you know, fled and
Speaker 1: so her daughter, her young daughter is on the outside
Speaker 1: with no parents, I mean solely was maybe twenty years old,
Speaker 1: maybe nineteen years old at this time. It's hard to
Speaker 1: overstate just how lucky Glafira was to have such a
Speaker 1: family friend who was an experienced attorney at this moment
Speaker 1: in her life. After she was arrested, I offered to help,
Speaker 1: largely on a pro bono basis, because all of her
Speaker 1: assets had been seized at that point. Basically, what we
Speaker 1: were able to do is explained to Glafira how this
Speaker 1: was going to play out, that the government had, you know,
Speaker 1: a strong case on the tax evasion charges and that
Speaker 1: carried very significant penalties. Once behind bars, the first order
Speaker 1: of business was for a judge to determine whether Glafira
Speaker 1: Rosalee was a flight risk. We put together I thought
Speaker 1: a very persuasive ca ace thatfa you know, had dual citizenship,
Speaker 1: a boyfriend, with a home into the Dominican Republic, ties
Speaker 1: I believe to Spain, foreign bank accounts, a lot of liquidity,
Speaker 1: a lot of assets, you know, at the time, and
Speaker 1: I'll say it was by no means certain that she
Speaker 1: would be detained because on the other side of the coin,
Speaker 1: I mean, she's never had a criminal case before. She was,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe fifty something, your old woman with a
Speaker 1: daughter here in the United States, and so the defense
Speaker 1: made an argument, a strong argument that hey, you know,
Speaker 1: she's not going to go anywhere. Why would she go anywhere?
Speaker 1: She's got all these ties. But thankfully for us, the
Speaker 1: judge detained her. And although I can't say for certain,
Speaker 1: I would think that being detained would weigh on someone
Speaker 1: and make them more likely to want to cooperate and
Speaker 1: tell us what really happened. The judge said, no, I'm
Speaker 1: going to keep you detained because I think you've you
Speaker 1: you are a flight risk, and so you know, if
Speaker 1: that was that, she she went back into the m
Speaker 1: c C or the m d C, one of the
Speaker 1: two facilities that are used. Well, yeah, you don't want
Speaker 1: to be there, trust me. She was not in the
Speaker 1: most difficult spot where like the terrorists and Burne made
Speaker 1: off go. But no, you don't. You know, you don't
Speaker 1: want to spend any time there. If you can, if
Speaker 1: you can help it. A few months in prison was
Speaker 1: all Glafa needed. The con was over and there was
Speaker 1: no one worth protecting. At the cost of sacrificing her freedom,
Speaker 1: Gafara decided to cooperate, and she provided information about Carlos
Speaker 1: and about Patience, and after it was clear that Glifer
Speaker 1: was telling the truth. The government agreed to release her
Speaker 1: un bail. Rosales spilled the entire story to investigators. In
Speaker 1: September two thirteen, she pled guilty to nine counts, including
Speaker 1: one count of money laundering, one count of wire fraud,
Speaker 1: and three counts of falsifying income tax returns. She had
Speaker 1: pocketed twenty six million dollars and paid no Texas. Despite
Speaker 1: her testimony, Fia was facing as much as nine years
Speaker 1: in prison. But this was only the bail hearing. The
Speaker 1: sentencing would come much later, you know, as we later learned,
Speaker 1: because of her cooperation, really only because of her cooperation,
Speaker 1: we've got the two burgan Tinos brothers and Psian you know, involved,
Speaker 1: and that really broke down the door, okay, to a
Speaker 1: wealth of information that only came from her. But as
Speaker 1: you know most people know, Py Sian as soon as
Speaker 1: he heard that we were on his tail, took off
Speaker 1: to China, a country that does not extradite its own nationals.
Speaker 1: I'm personally much more upset with the Spanish court's decision
Speaker 1: to non extradite the Bergantino brothers. Amazingly, from a criminal standpoint,
Speaker 1: things were looking good for and freedman. If we thought
Speaker 1: that we could prove beyond a reasonable doubt to twelve
Speaker 1: people that other people knew the aspects of the scheme,
Speaker 1: the critical aspects of the scheme, then we would have
Speaker 1: brought a case. But you know, you've got to have proof.
Speaker 1: You've got to have proof that's admissible in court that
Speaker 1: you know someone who was selling the paintings, whether it's
Speaker 1: Fa as the consigner or and you also have to
Speaker 1: prove that she knows that they are fake. So, you know,
Speaker 1: here you're dealing with a situation where a freedman's first
Speaker 1: point of contact, Lafia, is lying to her about the provenance.
Speaker 1: And again the provenance has elements of it that have
Speaker 1: elements of truth. You know, Sorry, it was a real person.
Speaker 1: Herbert was a real person. It is actually the case
Speaker 1: that a lot of art is found, you know, from
Speaker 1: time to time. What we did in this case was
Speaker 1: we took it as far as we thought the evidence
Speaker 1: that we had would take it. FA had done her
Speaker 1: part and broken the case wide open for investigators. The
Speaker 1: bergen Tino's brothers fled the United States for Spain, a
Speaker 1: country beyond the reach of US extradition. The artist patient
Speaker 1: Quan hurriedly returned home to China, another country out of
Speaker 1: reach from u S authorities. That left only Michael Hammer
Speaker 1: and Ann Friedman. Neither would be prosecuted on criminal charges
Speaker 1: or simply wasn't enough proof, but both were still subject
Speaker 1: to civil suits, where a jury only needed to conclude
Speaker 1: that a defendant was more than fifty likely to have
Speaker 1: committed a crime. Monetary settlements from civil suits could inflict
Speaker 1: their own kind of severe punishment. The fear of such
Speaker 1: verdicts had led the Knoedler to settle with Pierre Legrange.
Speaker 1: As for the Souls, their showdown with Ann Eatment and
Speaker 1: the Knodler was about to begin. Some three dozen journalists,
Speaker 1: including our own Michael Schneyerson, who were bent over their
Speaker 1: notepads that day in the classically high ceiling, oak paneled courtroom.
Speaker 1: The trial began on a Monday in January two thou sixteen.
Speaker 1: The list of names who weren't present in court that
Speaker 1: day was almost as interesting as who was. Lafara Rosalee
Speaker 1: wasn't there. Having served three months in jail before admitting
Speaker 1: her guilt, she was now agonizing over what further sentence
Speaker 1: she would have to serve and wondering how she would
Speaker 1: come up with eighty million dollars in compensation for her victims.
Speaker 1: The Bergen, Tino's brothers were still in Spain, Quan was
Speaker 1: in China, even Michael Hammer was absent in court. Hammer
Speaker 1: had not appeared once from behind the Knodler doors since
Speaker 1: the gallery closed, nor granted any interviews. But after eighteen
Speaker 1: years or so of the forgery ring, Michael Hammer looked
Speaker 1: more and more like a key player, no less so
Speaker 1: than Ann Friedman, As much was told in a lawsuit
Speaker 1: filed by one of the victims, casino owner Frank for
Speaker 1: Tita the Third, who in two thousand eight bought a
Speaker 1: fake Rothco for seven point two million dollars. Hammer, the
Speaker 1: complaint detailed, knew that Knodler bought the paintings from Rosale's
Speaker 1: for shockingly low prices and quickly resold them for enormous
Speaker 1: markups for Tita alleged quote. In all, Knoedler resold the
Speaker 1: Rosealves paintings for a total of sixty three point eight
Speaker 1: million dollars, realizing gross profits of approximately forty eight point
Speaker 1: seven million dollars. Hammer, acting on behalf of Notler and
Speaker 1: his foundation eight thirty one, saw two of the tens
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars in profit be distributed largely to
Speaker 1: himself and Ann Friedman through a Friedman and Hammer had
Speaker 1: a meeting in the early days of the scandal, and
Speaker 1: a handwritten memo survived their talk to surface later in
Speaker 1: Fatita's complaint. It was unclear whether the notes were taken
Speaker 1: by Freedman or Hammer, but the sentiments were in technicolor
Speaker 1: Discreet sources are my stock and trade. When one of
Speaker 1: the comments, don't kill the goose that's laying the golden egg,
Speaker 1: went another, and I am not going to change my
Speaker 1: way of doing business. If you were not comfortable, step away.
Speaker 1: And Friedman was in the courtroom the day the desolas
Speaker 1: child began. She sat quietly beside her lawyers, wreathed in
Speaker 1: her soft white curls, dressed in black, beige and gray,
Speaker 1: saying nothing. As the witnesses began to come forward, she
Speaker 1: too would be forced to testify if the trial went
Speaker 1: as planned. Luke Nichoas and Freedman's lawyer, had a novel defense.
Speaker 1: As it turned out. He argued that thess were responsible
Speaker 1: for checking their paintings authenticity themselves. They were, after all,
Speaker 1: sophisticated art buyers. By that logic, Nikos suggested the jury
Speaker 1: shouldn't blame Noldler for selling the their fake art. The
Speaker 1: customers were the ones to blame for buying it. As
Speaker 1: for Anne, she was a salesperson, not an expert. They declared.
Speaker 1: She was just doing her job, selling paintings and earning
Speaker 1: profits for the gallery. Here's Luke Nichos with Anne. I
Speaker 1: certainly wanted to believe, but and I looked at the
Speaker 1: evidence and where the evidence show and what the evidence
Speaker 1: showed to me separate and apart from what Anne was
Speaker 1: telling me was emails from a guy like David ann
Speaker 1: Fam are the most significant experts and at abstract expressionism.
Speaker 1: What did David an Fem say about these works? He
Speaker 1: wrote an email in May of two thousand eight to
Speaker 1: Jack Flamm from the Dadalist Foundation, and that email said,
Speaker 1: I can't think of any reason to deem this newman
Speaker 1: from the Resolves collection. This newman inauthentic. He went on
Speaker 1: to say in the same email, I've seen the Krasners,
Speaker 1: I've seen the Pollux, the roth Codes, the clients and Stills,
Speaker 1: and I believe in these works. Now he acknowledged that
Speaker 1: the story was murky acknowledged that the ownership was unknown.
Speaker 1: But the reality is I saw an email like that
Speaker 1: from David and fam and I thought, if David and
Speaker 1: fem saying that, who am I the lawyer without this expertise?
Speaker 1: Let me dig further. I think it's important to understand
Speaker 1: what I concluded about whether they were authentic or not.
Speaker 1: Wasn't the point. My point is I had no expertise
Speaker 1: in whether they were authentic or not. The core question always, always,
Speaker 1: always was what did Ann Friedman believe and what did
Speaker 1: she have reason to believe based in the facts. Early
Speaker 1: in the trial, attorneys for the plaintiffs presented a fascinating
Speaker 1: exhibit to the court, the Doles eight point three million
Speaker 1: dollar fake Rothcoe. The thing I remember about it being
Speaker 1: physically in the courtroom the most is that the defendants
Speaker 1: immediately wanted a sidebar with the judge because they felt
Speaker 1: that the painting smelled new. This is the dissillis attorneys again.
Speaker 1: I think the issue was, like all artwork that's transported responsibly,
Speaker 1: it was in a wooden crate, so the wood was
Speaker 1: just secured with screws, and the crate got unscrewed, and
Speaker 1: it creates that kind of wood smell in the air,
Speaker 1: which made the painting smell like fresh wood, and so
Speaker 1: they felt it was prejudicial that the painting would smell
Speaker 1: so obvious we like fresh And the judge had to
Speaker 1: go over the and smell the painting to assess, and
Speaker 1: he was, like he said on the record, he was like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm going over to smell the painting.
Speaker 1: Trudge over. He smelled it, and I think they did
Speaker 1: move it. Yeah, yeah, but they left it out, but
Speaker 1: I thought. I remember it was very dramatic. We carried
Speaker 1: the painting over someplace and you know, there was like
Speaker 1: a hush in the room. Were like a gas because
Speaker 1: people in the art world are so used to such
Speaker 1: delicate handling and white glove handling of works like this,
Speaker 1: and you know it was a fake, so that we
Speaker 1: just picked it up with our bare hands. We were
Speaker 1: not professional. There was the other moment, the funny moment
Speaker 1: with the painting, when Pulkari said on the stand, like,
Speaker 1: I think it's supposed to be the other way, you know,
Speaker 1: like its upside down. Even Stephen Poli was one of
Speaker 1: the two quote unquote experts who Knowler had hired and
Speaker 1: paid to look at some of these works, and when
Speaker 1: he testified about the Rothcoe, he testified that it did
Speaker 1: it couldn't usually tell with Rothco's which weighs up. A
Speaker 1: day or two into the trial, the Doles took the
Speaker 1: stand to tell the story of their fake Rothco. Eleanor
Speaker 1: was emotional, Domenico fierce. Both were heartfelt, taking breaks to
Speaker 1: chat up the press, but they would find themselves subject
Speaker 1: to the occasional bit of snarkiness for bringing rich people's
Speaker 1: problems into the courtroom. With the Doles done on cross examination,
Speaker 1: the trial turned to Ann Friedman's list of eleven experts
Speaker 1: whose names she had used to authenticate her paintings. None
Speaker 1: of the eleven had wished to be on that list.
Speaker 1: What emerged was what we showed that trial with the
Speaker 1: witness testimony, that there were no experts who authenticated the paintings.
Speaker 1: For another, it just didn't happen. You know. The story
Speaker 1: that the defendants were selling that they believe the works
Speaker 1: were real and the experts authenticated, that was just absolutely rebutted,
Speaker 1: totally debunked. With respect to David Ampham, he never was
Speaker 1: shown a Rothco despite being the world's leading expert in
Speaker 1: Rothko I don't think it's a coincidence that he was
Speaker 1: never shown any the rathcos not one. Not only had
Speaker 1: I not seen the Disoli painting, I'd never even been
Speaker 1: in the same moon with it. What I got was
Speaker 1: a package with a transparencive a painting, a note for
Speaker 1: man dated July and pretty so this was two thousand
Speaker 1: and five. I picked it up, looks at the transparencies
Speaker 1: were about twenty seconds, and put it in the file,
Speaker 1: filed it away and did not look at it again
Speaker 1: until then. That's the time of the drial. It sounds
Speaker 1: as if Anne was doing her best to circulate your
Speaker 1: name and your approval of this painting. Is that true? Yes,
Speaker 1: it's true. I didn't know of the time. I have
Speaker 1: to say that from the perspective of the present, I
Speaker 1: felt I was being manipulated, and I don't take commory
Speaker 1: to that. And when I saw the letter, which had
Speaker 1: a list of people who had seen the dissol A painting,
Speaker 1: starting with Christopher off Go, followed by myself, I was
Speaker 1: absolutely shocked. I couldn't believe that my name has been
Speaker 1: put in a letter without my knowing it, without my approval,
Speaker 1: and effectively so any buyer, it could be constituted as
Speaker 1: a kind of authentication by Foxing. As the trial entered
Speaker 1: its second week on February sixteen, as of excitement permeated
Speaker 1: the courtroom. After all this warm up, An Friedman was
Speaker 1: due to testify at last. Oddly, however, the judge's chair
Speaker 1: remained empty as the ten am hour came and went.
Speaker 1: At last, the judge reappeared and announced in open court
Speaker 1: that a settlement had been reached from the dess Grins.
Speaker 1: Their gambit had paid off. As for Ann Friedman's lawyers,
Speaker 1: they looked relieved. Whatever they had agreed to pay, it
Speaker 1: was probably less than the million dollar RICO payment that
Speaker 1: Theses were demanding. The trial, however, would continue because Michael
Speaker 1: Hammer and his eight thirty one foundation were not yet
Speaker 1: off the hook. Hammer's chief financial officer testified that Hammer,
Speaker 1: her boss, had awarded himself some twenty luxury cars, including
Speaker 1: a four hundred two dollar Rose Royce and a five
Speaker 1: dollar Mercedes. That was all in addition to a four
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars salary he paid himself from his Knodler
Speaker 1: piggy bank. Anne was scheduled to testify that Wednesday against
Speaker 1: her former boss about how much the two of them
Speaker 1: had profited from selling forty plus fake paintings that had
Speaker 1: come through the Knodler. Once again, the judge and counselor
Speaker 1: has disappeared behind closed doors and emerged appearing satisfied a
Speaker 1: private settlement had been reached between the Desoles and A
Speaker 1: thirty one. The trial was finally over some weeks later,
Speaker 1: and agreed to speak to the press. From the start,
Speaker 1: Friedman said she had regarded the David Herbert collection as
Speaker 1: a quote puzzle to be solved. She had tried to
Speaker 1: extract more information from GlyP Era every time Rosalee arrived
Speaker 1: with another painting. Only with Rosalee's confession had an realized
Speaker 1: how thoroughly and classically duped she'd been. Or so she said,
Speaker 1: when you ask a calm artist a question, they say, aha,
Speaker 1: I see what you mean. Let me check it out,
Speaker 1: and miraculously they have the answers and be called. She
Speaker 1: called herself a perfect mark and added I have never
Speaker 1: deliberately done something wrong, which is to say knowingly. But
Speaker 1: then she added a jarring remark, I am terribly sorry
Speaker 1: for anybody hurt or damaged, but let me be clear,
Speaker 1: this is about works of art. I didn't slay anybody's
Speaker 1: first born. We have to have some perspective on suffering, or,
Speaker 1: as a sympathetic historian apparently told her, we all need
Speaker 1: to get over it. More art fraud in a minute.
Speaker 1: The Disilers lawyers felt pleased they've gotten their clients the
Speaker 1: outcome they wanted, but the settlement allowed Freedman to crow
Speaker 1: and declared she would have gladly had the trial go on,
Speaker 1: and was sure that jury would have found her innocent,
Speaker 1: if only on a technicality. The Disols lawyers roll their
Speaker 1: eyes at that things got resolved before the journey got
Speaker 1: to reach its verdict. But you know, we did speak
Speaker 1: to the jurors afterwards. They were completely convinced that she
Speaker 1: knew exactly what she was doing. Despite the fact that
Speaker 1: a jury never actually ruled on the case in court,
Speaker 1: the Doss and their lawyers saw the outcome as an
Speaker 1: overwhelming victory. I think that you're looking maybe you're suggesting
Speaker 1: that you need a verdict through your story. I don't
Speaker 1: think so. I think you need to tell the story
Speaker 1: and put it out there to show what happened. And
Speaker 1: they did a d of that, and it's not a
Speaker 1: coincidence that the five cases that were pending you know
Speaker 1: at the time we settled, also all settled and no
Speaker 1: one went to trial. You know, I'd say, you know,
Speaker 1: no other and Freedman and Freedman didn't step up to
Speaker 1: defend themselves and go to trial on any of those
Speaker 1: five cases that followed. The rulings made it crystal clear that,
Speaker 1: you know, collectors have the right to reasonably rely on
Speaker 1: reputable galleries, and that it's the reputable galleries obligation to
Speaker 1: come forward with what they know and what they don't
Speaker 1: know about works that they're selling. As attorney Luke Nicas felt,
Speaker 1: the settlement only confirmed the case that he had argued.
Speaker 1: Not only was she not prosecuted, but when the superseding
Speaker 1: indictment came out, in which Glafira Resolis had told her
Speaker 1: story to the federal government, it was clear from that
Speaker 1: indictment that Anne was not implicated at all in the
Speaker 1: underlying crime. He had every reason to throw in under
Speaker 1: the bus. Her boyfriend had every reason to throw in
Speaker 1: under the bus. The painter did. Everyone did, and at
Speaker 1: least from that superseding indictment, it was clear they didn't.
Speaker 1: And when you look at all of the information, not
Speaker 1: just pieces of it, and you put it together and
Speaker 1: you ask did Anne believe these works were fake at
Speaker 1: the time, I just don't think you can get there.
Speaker 1: You can say she made mistakes, but the prosecutor needs
Speaker 1: to prove beyond that, and I don't think they could.
Speaker 1: It had now been three years since was arrested, three birthdays,
Speaker 1: three Christmas, is out on bail, nervously awaiting her sentence
Speaker 1: on nine federal charges. During that time, Rosalee had broken
Speaker 1: no laws and had helped prosecutors to the extent that
Speaker 1: she could to track down the Bergantino's brothers. They remained
Speaker 1: at large due to Spain's changing extradition rules. In weighing
Speaker 1: her sentence, Judge Faiala had listened to Lafas story of
Speaker 1: physical and emotional abuse at the hands of Carlos and
Speaker 1: found it credible. As Jason Hernandez suggested, the judge had
Speaker 1: seen a culprit left holding the bag while the rest
Speaker 1: of the ring went free. Enough was enough. In January
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen, the judge sentenced her to time already
Speaker 1: served eighty two days. Lafra was a free woman. She
Speaker 1: was also broke, but their lives are very difficult because
Speaker 1: everything that they had could be traceable to, you know,
Speaker 1: their art business, which was fraudulent or infected with frauds.
Speaker 1: So everything was seized. Their home was seized, all of
Speaker 1: their money was seized, all of the art was seized,
Speaker 1: and so far in her late fifties, had to build
Speaker 1: herself back up. So she now works part time as
Speaker 1: a hostess in a restaurant in her sixties and as
Speaker 1: a waitress from time to time, and solely is involved
Speaker 1: in the art business and is building her own business
Speaker 1: and knows how to do it right, and is supporting
Speaker 1: her mother. And so you have the story of a
Speaker 1: daughter supporting her mother and their father is still very
Speaker 1: much very antagonistic. Carlos is very antagonistic, but he's he's
Speaker 1: off in Spain. The government, as you probably tried to
Speaker 1: extradate him and was unsuccessful in doing so. The fall
Speaker 1: of the Knodler Gallery would have rippling effects throughout the
Speaker 1: art world. Gretchen Deep and Corn described the seismic shift
Speaker 1: and trust between client and gallery. I think it's terrible
Speaker 1: for the art market. For example, right after the first
Speaker 1: revelations in the New York Times story, the dealer. Our
Speaker 1: current dealer began getting phone calls about, oh dear, it
Speaker 1: is the work that I bought? Is it real? And
Speaker 1: it wasn't only our dealer, it was others. And then
Speaker 1: all of the dealers are under suspicion now because it's
Speaker 1: never been a field that has seemed entirely squeaky clean anyway,
Speaker 1: because things happen, you know, people get better. One person
Speaker 1: gets a good deal, the next person doesn't, and they're
Speaker 1: they're mad, and so, I mean, nobody trusts anybody in
Speaker 1: this kind of world anyway in some way. But this
Speaker 1: made it a hundred times worse. David and fam didn't
Speaker 1: hold back in his blistering opinion of the Knoedler scandal.
Speaker 1: In hindsight, I think the whole Knodler story will go
Speaker 1: down as one of the worst scandals of its kind,
Speaker 1: indeed probably the most shameful for law go in the
Speaker 1: Annals of Martin. What could prove even more interesting is
Speaker 1: a verdict of history upon whoever the gods as being
Speaker 1: of the episode who of the Soldid saga from first
Speaker 1: to Lost, Having followed the fall of the Knodler Gallery
Speaker 1: from the first revelations of forgery through the trial and
Speaker 1: the half dozen settlements, I'd come to realize that this
Speaker 1: case was far from a once in a lifetime phenomenon.
Speaker 1: As we've heard from countless artists, dealers, and collectors, the
Speaker 1: art market has been and remains a target rich environment
Speaker 1: for con artists willing to risk prison time for a
Speaker 1: big score. There's the fascinating case of Intego Philbrick, a
Speaker 1: young and charming London based dealer who oversold fractional shares
Speaker 1: of works by hot new artists in a made off
Speaker 1: like Ponzi scheme. There's also the case of aging artist
Speaker 1: Robert Indiana, creator of the iconic love Works, whose Coterie
Speaker 1: of Assistance on an island off the coast of Maine,
Speaker 1: would be accused of squeezing windfall profits from him, going
Speaker 1: so far as to employ an automatic signature signing machine. Finally,
Speaker 1: there was my own brush with art fraud, in which
Speaker 1: a painting I purchased from an artist I adored through
Speaker 1: his longtime dealer Mary Boone, would end up pitting us
Speaker 1: against each other in a bitter legal battle I never
Speaker 1: could have anticipated. We'll talk about all of those cases
Speaker 1: in our final episode of Art Fraud. Ny Arn't Fraud
Speaker 1: is brought to you by I Heart Radio and Cavalry Audio.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Matt del Piano, Keegan Rosenberger, Andy Turner, myself,
Speaker 1: and Michael Snayerson. We're produced by Brandon Morgan and Zach McNeice.
Speaker 1: Zach also edited and mixed this episode. Lindsay Hoffman is
Speaker 1: our managing producer. Our writer is Michael Schneyerson.