Art Dealer Leigh Morse Returns to Court for Failure to Pay Restitution
- January 06, 2015 16:55
Heading to court again is Leigh Morse, the former gallery director who worked for disgraced art dealer Lawrence Salander. She allegedly has paid back $60,000, a mere 4% of the restitution she owes defrauded clients, according to prosecutors.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus ordered Morse back to court on Jan. 28 when he'll decide whether to give her extra “conditions or a re-sentence of incarceration.”
In 2011, Manhattan criminal court sentenced Morse to weekend confinement in prison for four months and a five-year probation. She was found guilty of selling more than 80 works of art from four estates for approximately $5 million without informing the owners.
She escaped a sentence of 1 to 3 years in prison and $9.1 million in restitution as sought by the district attorney.
Morse was cleared of larceny stemming from allegations she sold several paintings by Robert DeNiro's father, the late Robert DeNiro Sr., without paying the actor.
Her former boss, Lawrence Salander, is serving a 6 to 18 year prison term for an art scam that netted more than $100 million from DeNiro, tennis legend John McEnroe, Bank of America Corp, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the estate of Stuart Davis, and many others. He was ordered to pay $120 million in restitution.
Morse maintains that she was unaware of Salander's scheme and that telling consignors about sales was not part of her job. She did not expect the Salander-O'Reilly Gallery to file for bankruptcy in 2007, she said.