On Tuesday in San Francisco a federal judge sentenced former commercial real estate mogul Luke Brugnara to 7 years in prison for swindling a New York art dealer. The fraud verdict comes after the June 2014 disappearance of millions of dollars worth of art delivered to Brugnara.

Art dealer Rose Long shipped cross-country a Degas sculpture "Little Dancer" to Brugnara along with a drawing by Joan Miró, a series of etchings by Pablo Picasso, 16 paintings attributed to Willem de Kooning and a painting by George Luks. After the delivery to his empty San Francisco mansion, Long demanded payment of the agreed upon price of $11 million for all the artwork, only to be rebuffed.

Brugnara has alternately said some of the works were fake, a gift from Long, stolen by deliverymen or never delivered. The FBI has recovered all the missing art except the most valuable---the Degas.

Judge Alsup ordered $600,000 in restitution for the Degas and roughly $88,000 in total attorneys' fees for Long and fellow art dealer Walter Maimbaum. Brugnara will serve 69 months in prison plus 15 months for contempt for his abusive outbursts in court and a short-lived escape from federal custody.

"I'm not a con man, Maibaum's a con man," Brugnara told the court. "He's got five of these Little Dancers in his closet because no one wants them." Brugnara claimed the Degas and the de Koonings were fake, which the dealers denied.

The restitution payment came in relatively low given that the price tag for the Degas was $3 million, and the other artworks were held for months as evidence in the case. (Reimbursement for the missing sculpture became a legal action involving the insurer Lloyd's and the New York art dealers.)

 "It's their own fault for dealing with Mr. Brugnara in the first place," the judge said of the art dealers. Brugnara has previously been convicted of tax evasion, steelhead trout poaching, and mail fraud.