Glafira Rosales Pleads Guilty to $80 Million Art Forgery Scam

  • September 16, 2013 21:51

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Glafira Rosales

Glafira Rosales, 57, pleaded guilty on Monday in Manhattan federal court to her role in a scheme to sell more than 60 fake works of modern art to two prominent New York galleries, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney. Knoedler & Co. and Julian Weissman Fine Art paid about $33.2 million for the fake art and then sold them to clients as works by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell and others for a total of $80 million.

Before U.S. District Court Judge Katherine P. Failla, Rosales also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to sell the fake works, conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering, and several tax crimes related to the fake art scheme.

Along with her boyfriend, Rosales secured an artist in Queens to paint the fake art from his home studio. The provenance that she gave the galleries were a Swiss collector who never existed and a Spanish collector who never owned the artworks.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “With her guilty plea today, Glafira Rosales acknowledges her role in a sprawling fraud that involved the commission of phony artworks she represented as real, and her efforts to hide the proceeds of this massive scam in foreign bank accounts. Rosales’s plea shows that no matter how wide-ranging the deception, this Office will continue to bring the perpetrators of fraud to justice.”

Rosales faces a total maximum term of imprisonment of 99 years. She also agreed to forfeit $33,200,000, including her home in Sands Point, New York, and to pay restitution in an amount not to exceed $81 million. Her sentencing will follow.

 

Tags: American art

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