March 2, 2022 • 53 mins
Art Fraud is investigative journey through one of the biggest cases of art fraud in US history done by The Knoedler Gallery written by VANITY REPORTER Michael Shnayerson and hosted by Alec Baldwin. On this episode a wealthy Belgian financier wants his $17 million back after he discovers the truth about the painting and the Knoedler Gallery. Listen to Art Fraud on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
We've all felt left out, and for people who moved
to this country, that feeling last more than a moment.
We can change that. Learn how it Belonging begins with
us dot org. Brought to you by the AD Council. Hey, Hey,
this is John O'Bryant, entrepreneur and a fellow builder just
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and Prudential Financial, I'd like to present to you my
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brand new podcast is called Building the Good Life, where
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I'm time onto you and I'm the host of Calling BS,
the first podcast about purpose washing. In this show, we
dig into the difference between what organizations say they stand
for and the actions they are actually taking. Let's call
BS on the businesses that deserve it and also make
some concrete suggestions for cleaning that BS up. Listen to
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Calling BS every Wednesday on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If you
went into the Gucci store and bought a handbag. You
wouldn't ask the salesperson is this a real Gucci? You know,
you would take that as a sort of given fact.
So the fact that Nodler, you know, was the oldest
(01:29):
gallery in the city. It was a hundred and sixty
five years old. It had worked with these artists in
their lifetimes, and if you wanted to buy an abstract
expressionist painting, that's kind of the place you would go
to do that. By the mid two thousand's, Carlos and
as forgery scheme was raking in enormous profits, and yet
(01:50):
Era was miserable. Later, she told a federal judge that
Carlos beat her frequently, once going so are as to
break her nose. The beatings, she claimed, were to keep
her from bailing out of the family art business. Quitting
wasn't an option. Carlos warned that if she left, he
(02:12):
would kidnap their daughters solely and take her to Spain,
and Glyphra would never see her again. Ironically, gas relationship
with Ann Friedman was blossoming. Rosalees demanded and received higher
fees from Knobler as the fake paintings continued to sell
(02:35):
for exorbitant prices. Ultimately, GPA would rake in more than
twenty million dollars in her fourteen year forgery career. With
that money came a commensurate lifestyle. In two thousand five,
Carlos and Gpa bought an enormous square foot house in
(02:56):
the North Shore neighborhood of Sam's Point on Long Island's
Gold Coast. The Mediterranean style home came with a two
point three million dollar price tag, quite a property for
a local art dealer and her seemingly unemployed partner. Friends
and neighbors found the home beautiful and impressively furnished, but
(03:16):
not without its quirks. The odd thing about it was
they were paintings everywhere, and not just hung on the
walls either. One time we went over to pick up
the kids, my wife and I were in the house
and we were kind of blown away by the art
that we saw in the house, because, you know, Glafire
always had the appearance of being successful. My name is
(03:38):
Brian Scarlatto's I'm an attorney with Costellans and Fink in
New York City, and I specialized in criminal tax investigations
and prosecutions. Brian was a family friend of Cfia and
Carlos and Sam's point, their children attended the same school. Later,
when Golf's legal troubles began, she retained Brian as her attorney.
(04:00):
We knew she had a gallery in New York, but
when we went into the house, you know, we recognized
several pieces that that we knew. There were warholes. I
believe there was a Picasso, there was a Rothco, and
others like that. And as I said, there was also
very interesting furniture, and there was just so much art
that some of it was leaned up against the wall
(04:21):
because there wasn't enough room to hang it all on
the walls. And you know, my wife and I think
just assumed that they were using their art as storage
for their gallery. But when you go into somebody's house
and you see warholes in a Picasso and a Rothco
and other things that you recognize, it's it's sort of,
you know, overwhelming. You know, it was also casual. I
remember remarking to my wife on the way out that
(04:43):
you know, oh my god, they have this this little dog, Rocky,
who was running around embarking. And I remember saying to
my wife, what if Rocky were to pee on a Picasso.
I mean it just and it seemed like it could happen, because,
as I say, things were just stacked up against the wall.
They were always very elegantly dressed, you know, nice cars,
in a very nice house, and they seemed to travel
the world, and they also knew a lot about art.
(05:06):
And so they were my friends who were the art
dealers and had a gallery. And Friedman was also living
the good life. Ndler was trafficking almost exclusively in the
David Herbert collection of fake Rothko's, to Coonings and pollocks,
and had a knack for reaching out to buyers that
(05:27):
were exceedingly wealthy but not necessarily well informed. Domenico and
Eleanor de Sole walked into the Ndler in late two
thousand four in search of a Shawn Scully painting. Scully
was a contemporary abstract artist. The Soules, profond of Domenico Disle,
was just stepping down as president and CEO of Gucci
(05:49):
and was becoming designer Tom Ford's partner in a new
fashion company. The Soles had an ocean front home in
Hilton Head, South Carolina, and needed art to hang on
its walls and didn't have a Shawn Scully painting to
sell them. She did, however, have an amazing Mark Rothko,
as she had done so many times before, and enchanted
(06:12):
her prospective buyers with the story of the ex family,
David Herbert and the marvelous downtown art world of the
nineteen fifties where artists sold works out of the back
of their studios for cash. The Desoles glowed with excitement.
They had never paid anywhere close to eight point four
million dollars for a painting before, but it was a Rothco.
(06:35):
The very name of the painting, untitled nineteen fifty six,
evoked images of the troubled artist in his upper East
Side carriage house, working late into the night. Like so
many other paintings in the David Herbert collection, the work
was notably smaller than a typical Rothco. Larger ones went
for tens of millions of dollars. Once again, the painting
(06:57):
had no real provenance, nor was it in the Rothco
catalog resume, but Anne said she had no doubt the
magnificent painting they were gazing at would soar in value
once it was placed in a future supplement to the
catalog resume. The eight point four million dollar Rothko was
sold and hung in the Dosoles hilton Head family home.
(07:20):
Eleanor later testified that friends would stop by just who
and ah over it? But what was a Rothko compared
to a top of the market Pollock. Ever since Anne
had hit a wall with the Leavey Pollock, she had
pressed life for another. By two thousand seven she had
(07:41):
it in hand, a classic drip painting with a silvery cast.
Fully deserving, Anne thought of the seventeen million dollar price
tag she attached to it. Through a pair of middleman dealers,
a transparency of the painting found its way to a
Belgian born financi or named Pierre Lagrange. La Grange was
(08:03):
a hedge fund manager, one of the richest men in London.
He was drawn to the Pollock, but, like Jack Levy,
he wanted assurances that the painting was authentic. Fortunately, Lagrange
wasn't asking for an official eye far evaluation of the painting.
He did want to be sure that the Pollock Krasner
Foundation would authenticate the work. This was a problem for Anne.
(08:26):
The Pollock Foundation had stopped authenticating any new works purporting
to be Pollocks. As for the Pollock catalog, resume, its
last and final supplement, had been released in nineteen ninety four,
and had the clout to arrange a meeting with the
Pollock Krausner Foundation lawyers, in part because one of the
lawyers was also her lawyer. She talked up the painting
(08:49):
and stressed the importance of updating the entire catalog resumee
to be reprinted in full color. It was our only
shot to have the painting added. Officially, the lawyers murmur
and hummed, but the word authentication never quite entered the room.
Anne had to think fast or risk losing the biggest
sale of her career. On March eighteenth, two thousand seven,
(09:14):
Anne wrote to Lagranges Camp and told them exactly what
she thought the English collector wanted to hear. Quote. The
Poblock Krasner Foundation has stated that they are intending to
update and republish the catalog resume in full color and
also in an online version. Every detail of the email
was a lie. Lagrange and his chief lawyer, Matthew Johnson
(09:38):
found the email less than persuasive. They wanted reps and warranties,
as Donson later put it, which was to say legally
binding language that the painting would be authenticated, and that
it would appear in the next catalog. Resume Friedman turned indignant. Quote.
The distrusting and demanding language in this agreement of sale
(09:59):
is not and keeping with the familiar and widely accepted
standards and practices in the art business, she huffed. In
her written response, it veers far from the spirit and
understanding of our original agreement. I have not been confronted
by anything like this in my thirty four years of
experience as an art dealer. We have given you our word.
(10:21):
Our invoice is always our legal guarantee, and has previously
stated if this painting has proved not to be by
the hand of Pollock, the sale would be canceled, the
painting return to Ndler, and the full purchase refunded to
you end quote. The hypocrisy of the letter was breathtaking,
but Ann's huffing and puffing seemed to do the trick.
(10:44):
On November six, two thousand seven, Pierre Lagrange completed his
purchase of the silvery Pollock. The Knodler provided a written
guarantee that Lagrange's pollock was from a quote private collection
of the heir to a collector who had obtained it
directly from Jackson Pollock end quote. The air insisted on anonymity.
(11:06):
With seventeen million dollars rendered, Pierre Lagrange gave his new
painting a place of honor in his London penthouse, unaware
that its true value was little more than the canvas
it was painted on. More art fraud in a minute. Hi,
(11:36):
this is Bill Clinton, and I hope you'll join us
on why am I telling you this? And Why am
I telling you this? Why am I telling you this?
And why am I telling you this? Because it is
your future on the line, where we'll talk about ideas
that are improving our world and deserve more attention. After
years of being interviewed, I'm looking forward to doing the
interviewing to celebrate people's unique gifts that make life more
(11:59):
interesting and affirm that our common humanity matters more. Please
join me on who Am I telling you this? For
conversations with some of the most fascinating people I know.
We'll share stories and talk about ideas that deserve more
attention and why we should be hopeful and optimistic about
our future. Listen to Why Am I telling You This?
(12:20):
On the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever
you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Elizabeth Dutton and I'm
Elizabeth Dutton. Wait sorry, do you want to see your name?
(12:42):
I'm good, good, go ahead. We're the hosts of Ridiculous Crime.
People love true crime, right, the mystery, the intrigue, the
human frailty totally. But what a lot of us don't
like is the blood and the guts and the mayheman Wait, wait, wait, wait,
some of us do like the mayhem. Okay, let's be real,
there's nothing funny about murder. Okay, that's our show gives
you stories like the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr. And
(13:04):
the Max Headrooms signal hijacking. Oh so you mean ridiculous
stories like the UK cat Shaver and Pablo Escobar's cocaine hippos. Yeah,
stories like the dudes who stole Buzzy, the animatronic whatever
he was from Disney World, and the woman whose husband
tried to kill her but came back from the dead
and surprised him at her own funeral. Yeah, that does
sound good. You can find this new podcast, Ridiculous Crime
(13:26):
all over the place, the I Heart Radio app, the
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't
know how you live ridiculous crime. What grows in the
forest trees? Sure? No? What else grows in the forest,
Our imagination, our sense of wonder, and our family bonds
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(13:50):
with this, we reconnect with each other. The forest is
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start exploring. I discover the forest. Do orc Brought to
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Around the same time, Pierre Lagrange was acquiring his seven
figure Pollock Glafia, Rosalie's success was perhaps going to her head.
(14:14):
An opportunity for new business came up when her old
friend Heimi Andrade introduced Cfia to an ex notler dealer
named Julian Weissman. Rosalez spoke to Wiseman about potentially cutting
ties with Ann Friedman. She wanted a new start, she said.
As a show of good faith, she consigned three Robert
(14:35):
Motherwell paintings to Wiseman's gallery, who works were said to
be from Motherwell's Elegy to the Spanish Republic series. The
third painting from the series was ultimately sold by Wiseman
for six hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Mark blonde,
director of the Irish Kalila Gallery. Blondeau, like Lagrange, wanted
authentication and he got it. Jack Flamm and Morgan Spangler,
(15:00):
co directors of the Motherwell Foundation known as the Dadalus,
spent hours poring over the Blondo Motherwell. Its lack of
provenance bothered them, but they fell obligated to authenticate it.
The painting was just that good. Flam and Spangler spent
the rest of two thousand seven finishing Motherwell's catalog Resimee.
(15:24):
As they did, they noticed a troubling trend more Spanish
elegy paintings without provenance. There were seven in all, including
the one now owned by the Khalila Gallery. To the
foundation's dismay, four of the seven paintings were being sold
by the Knodler Gallery. Jack Flam insisted that all seven
(15:45):
Spanish elegy paintings be shown together at the Knodler and
resisted as long as she could, but ultimately she caved
and agreed. The Spanish elegies were spectacular, but curiously, they
were all mind exactly the same way. This was strange
for a painter who was known to vary his signature.
(16:06):
From picture to picture, three of the paintings had gone
from Glafira to Weissman, indicating that Rosalis had played her
side game. Likely to ann Friedman's surprise, now and admitted
the obvious. All seven paintings had come from the same
source for the moment, she refused to say who that source.
(16:26):
Was alarmed, the Dadalus Foundation demanded Ndler higher a widely
respected forensic art expert named Jamie Martin, to test two
of the disputed Spanish Elegy paintings. Martin also tested genuine
Motherwell paintings for comparison's sake. What Jamie Martin would do
(16:50):
is he will take a painting and he will investigate
all the aspects of the paint, from the frame to
the paints that are used. That's Jason Hernandez, Assistant District
Attorney to New York Second District, and the course of
his criminal investigation, Jason gleaned a wealth of knowledge about
the forensic testing process. He'll take an incredibly small slice
(17:12):
of the paint. He'll investigate the dust that's in the
crevices and the cracks of the paint, and he will determine,
you know what the composition of those materials are. He
will look for what he calls anomalies, meaning things that
shouldn't be there. And I'll give you a very very
simple example. I think it was the DuPont Corporation at
some point patented titanium dioxide, which really makes whites really white.
(17:35):
It was patented sometime and I don't know the seventies
I'm going to call it. But what that means is
that if I present to you a Pollock painting and
it has titanium dioxide in it, we have a problem,
because Jackson Pollock was dead before titanium dioxide was discovered
and patented. Jamie Martin's report was devastating if found that
(18:01):
a red pigment in one of these Spanish elegies hadn't
existed until years after the paintings were said to be made.
All seven of the Spanish elegies were immediately scrapped from
the upcoming Motherwell catalog Resone. The Kalila gallerby sued the Daedalist,
The Dadalist sued Weissman, the dealer. In the end, all
(18:22):
parties settled with money changing hands and the Kalila's painting
branded on its verso as a forgery. One day, while
Jamie Martin was studying the Spanish elegies, Jack Flam had
a memorable talk with Ann Friedman. She said, I don't
want to get Michael Hammer involved in this. He's very lititious.
(18:43):
Flam later recalled, despite her wish to keep the Spanish
elegy debacle off her boss's desk, Friedman and Hammer had
forged an alliance right from the start, As a lawsuit
would later allege, Anne had kept her boss in the
loop the sales of Rosales's paintings from the beginning. She
sent Hammer short write ups of every new painting that
(19:05):
came in. The writeups detailed how much the gallery paid
fear for each picture wholesale and how much Ndler had
sold them for retail to its customers. And yet years
later Anne felt afraid of Michael Hammer enough to worry
he might sue her. It seemed as if each partner
still kept some secrets from the other. From the start,
(19:28):
Knoedler's owner, Michael Hammer had kept all but invisible in
his spacious office at the gallery. Staffers rarely saw him,
and when they did, it was hard not to be
distracted by his artificial tan and a wardrobe that could
charitably be described as extravagance. Hammers roughly two dozen vintage cars,
(19:48):
some worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, only underscore the
sense that here was a man of almost unimaginable wealth,
free to do as he wished. By the fall of
two thousand nine, news of the fake Spanish Elegy paintings
had reached the prosecutor's office in the Second District of
New York. Investigators were now sifting through Ann Friedman's seventeen
(20:15):
years as head of the Ndler Gallery. Any hopes and
had of keeping Michael Hammer out of the loop were dashed.
Seeing law enforcement walk through the doors had jolted Hammer
to his core. That October, he terminated Ann Friedman's employment
from the Ndler Gallery. Her feet barely touched the floor
(20:38):
as security guards swept her through the gallery and out
the front doors under the Royal blue awning and was finished.
We'll be back after this. Adoption of teams from Foster
(20:59):
Care is a townfect not enough people know about, and
we're here to change that. I'm April Dinuity, host of
the new podcast Navigating Adoption, presented by adopt Us Kids.
Each episode brings you compelling, real life adoption stories told
by the families that lived them, with commentary from experts.
Visit adopt us Kids dot org, slash podcast, or subscribe
to Navigating Adoption, presented by adopt Us Kids, brought to
(21:22):
you by the U S Department of Health and Human Services,
Administration for Children and Families, and the ACT Council. If
you love true crime podcasts, you need to check out
True Crime Obsessed. Each week, hosts Patrick and Jillian recap
a true crime documentary everyone is talking about, and they
do it with humor, heart and just the right amount
(21:43):
of sass. When you go camping, you either find the
skull or you become the skull. That's the role. Patrick
and Jillian have covered everything from the Ted Bundy tapes
to Lula Rich, with plenty of art heists in between.
With over one hundred million downloads and third prety thousand
five star reviews on Apple Podcasts, true Crime Obsessed is
(22:05):
one of the most popular true crime podcasts in the world.
Find True Crime Obsessed wherever you listen. From Cavalry Audio,
the studio that brought you The Devil Within and The
Shadow Girls, comes a new true crime podcast, The Pink
Moon murders. The local sheriff believes there may be more
(22:27):
than one killery. It's been four days since those bodies
were found and there's no arrest as it this morning.
They were afraid it's face it out in that area,
what if they come back or whatever. It scared me
to death, like it scared me, I was very, very
intimidating to live here. Crazy to think you go to
sleep one night, maybe snuggling with your loved one and
never wake up, or maybe you wake up in a
struggle for your life, which you lose. Joint host David
(22:50):
Raderman as he explores one fateful night when evil descended
upon small town, Ohio, killed eight members of an Ohio
family in a pre planned execution. Family was targeted, most
of them targeted while they were sleeping. Followed the Pink
Moon murders on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts. Back in London, Pierre
(23:15):
Lagrange was having trouble of his own. Just two years
after buying his seventeen million dollar pollock, he was embarking
on a divorce. He was advised to sell his recently
acquired pollock and split the proceeds with his soon to
be ex wife. Lagrange was shocked to discover that neither
Southbes nor Christie's would accept the work. After all, the
(23:35):
Pollock had no provenance, and its surfaced only a few
years before. David and Pham, one of the world's most
respected authorities on modern American art, was just as skeptical
when he personally viewed the painting in Pierre Lagrange's London home.
It was the ninth of April two thousand and eight
(23:56):
when I paid a visit and all the whole collection,
but then suddenly we got to the Pollock. Pierre looked
at me. I looked at Pierre's advisor, and I think
I said, what do you think? And I wouldcall very clearly,
saying well, that has a history. And they were hoping
(24:20):
for some more words. But I never said the west
was silence. They were hoping that you would say the
painting was right. Yes, that's exactly what I did not say.
La Grange had the distinct feeling he was being toyed with,
(24:41):
and he was angry. Where was Ann Friedman anyway? News
of her firing hadn't yet made its way to La Grange.
The Knoedler was playing a vanishing game of its own.
The gallery flat out refused to take back Lagrange's Pollock,
nor would it be fund his seventeen million dollars. After all,
the gallery insisted the painting was genuine. Lagrange was seeing
(25:06):
read he wanted his money, and surfaced in November two
with an email meant to lower the temperature. Once again,
she insisted politely but firmly, that Lagrange's Pollock was one
of several newly discovered works that would be added to
a revised Pollock catalog. Resimee Ann's timing couldn't have been worse.
(25:28):
Just one month after her attempt to band aid the
Lagrange situation with yet another lie, Jackson, Pollock expert Eugene
Thaw shocked the art world with a declaration of seismic proportions.
Thaw declared that Legrange's silvery Pollock looked not right to him.
Thaw was in poor health and he wanted to be
(25:48):
sure his judgment was made clear, so in early two
thousand eleven, he repeated his claim in a videotaped Affidavid.
The painting looked fake to him, Thal said, AND's email
was immediately and entirely invalidated. It was now February two eleven.
Pierre Lagrange still had no interest in meeting Ann Friedman,
(26:11):
but word was that a grand jury was convening to
consider charges stemming from the fake Spanish elegies, and Anne
was said to be a subject of interest. Lagrange decided
he would meet with her after all, and suggested the
lounge of the Carlisle Hotel with its serpentine rooms of
(26:32):
overstuffed chairs. Anne arrived early to the Carlyle on a
wintry day and shows a small table in a cozy
lowlit corner. She recognized Lagrange from his long gray hair
and angular face as soon as he walked in, and
stood up to greet him and his attorney, Matthew Donson.
(26:54):
Pierre Lagrange, I'm Ann Friedman. It's nice to meet you,
she said, don't be so sure, Lagrange heath in his
Belgian accent. Lagrange ordered a cocktail, the lawyer a coke.
I've been looking forward to meeting you and discussing the painting,
and said, cheerfully, let's talk about how I can be helpful.
I want my money, the grand said, his voice rising
(27:16):
with each word. That's all and tried to stay calm.
She leaned forward a bit. It's hard to predict the market,
she noted. She said they might have to wait a
while before selling the painting, but she and La Grange
would be able to help each other out of this fix,
and said assuredly. That was when Lagrange lashed out. Quote.
(27:41):
He started screaming at the top of his lungs. I'm
going to set you on fire. Do you understand that
I'm going to set you on fire and you will
have no life. It will be over, and it will
hit the press, and you will be done. And tried
to reason with the Belgian and financier in a calm voice,
(28:02):
as if talking to an unruly child. Taking the painting
back simply wasn't an option. She said all the experts
agreed it was real, and so did she, and said
she offered to take the painting on consignment and try
to sell it to someone else. Lagrange was astounded. Anne's
(28:23):
solution was to find some other sap to unload the
painting on. Not only was that wildly irresponsible, but surely
illegal as well. The two of them would be selling
a painting Lagrange now believed was a fake. If Noodler
didn't immediately return his money and take back the painting.
Lagrange railed, he would destroy her reputation. He was furious.
(28:49):
Lagrange and Johnson stood up. The meeting was clearly over.
Everyone by now at the Carlysle was staring. This was
a real scene, and recounted. The waiter came over and
asked if she was all right. Later, Lagrange would deny
A's account of the meeting. He hadn't raised his voice,
he said. The calamity at the Carlisle merely confirmed Lagrange's
(29:16):
worst fears. He was sure his Pollock was a fake,
and Friedman persona non grata. At the Ndler could do
nothing to get him his money back. Lagrange's only move
was to squeeze the reclusive Michael Hammer, Noodler's chairman, in
whatever way he could to recover his seventeen million. Lagrange
had no idea how utterly dependent the gallery was on
(29:38):
the sales of Ga Feara Rosales's paintings. He did note
with interest that Hammer had put one of the galleries
two adjoining mansions up for sale for more than a year,
The seventeen thousand square foot Italian Renaissance building at nine
Street had been quietly shopped around town for fifty nine
(29:58):
point nine million dollars. That was a high price in
a bear market. It remained for sale until February two
thousand eleven, when it sold for thirty one million dollars,
half its original asking price. As it turned out, the
sale came shortly before the disastrous Carlisle Hotel meeting. Lagrange
(30:19):
knew exactly where seventeen million of the mansions proceeds should go,
but Noodler had no interest in giving any of that
money back to the London Hedge funder. The standoff with
Lagrange remained a secret through much of two thousand eleven
as lawyers attempted to resolve the situation. Then in October
came news of the Motherwell Spanish elegy settlement. Hi. I'm
(30:44):
Patricia co In and I'm a reporter for the New
York Times. Patricia's first scoop about the Noodler saga was
dated October eleventh, two thousand eleven. I had no idea
at that point that that story was going to kind
of explode into one of the biggest art frauds of
(31:05):
the last hundred years. I just started digging around and
even though that story was relatively short, I quickly realized
that there was a much bigger story buried beneath this
with with a lot more questions that came up, and
then I started digging. Cohen's story in the Times prompted
(31:28):
Lagrange to do something he should have done far earlier.
He called Jamie Martin, the forensic expert who had analyzed
the motherwells, and requested a test on the polit no
auction house would touch. The tests confirmed Lagrange's worst fears.
Various pigments in the painting had not existed in ninety nine,
when the painting was supposedly made. It was forensically impossible
(31:52):
for the work to be legitimate. The report Lagrange received
in late November of two thousand eleven brought full throated
legal action. In a searing letter to Michael Hammer, Lagrange
demanded that Knodler refund his seventeen million dollars in forty
eight hours or face a lawsuit. The letter would ultimately
(32:15):
be the last straw from Michael Hammer to Lagrange's astonishment.
Hammer responded by closing the Knoedler's brass doors permanently on
November eleven, sixty five years after it first opened for business.
(32:40):
Gafara wasn't actually named, but New York Times readers learned
the name of Ann Friedman and learned too that she
had been accused of selling fake Motherwell's while she was
president of Nodler. Was there a sense of starting to
connect the dots sort of? I remember that day very
well because it was a big scandal. There was an
b I investigation. We were talking about, you know, many
(33:03):
paintings in many millions of dollars, and I knew about
the Pierre Lagrange lawsuit, and so I had basically been
planning within the next week to have this you know,
big expose about this, and then when the gallery closed,
it was like, oh shit, we have to cover this,
(33:25):
but you know, we've got this really other, big story,
but I can't get into all of that yet because
not every single piece had turned down. So essentially I
covered that as a new story, um, giving enough detail
that we knew something was going on, but also not
essentially wanting to kind of expose what we knew was
(33:47):
going to be part of this really big takedown. Incredibly,
just two days before Noodler closed its doors and two
years since she'd been fired and placed a very strange
phone call who noted Clifford Steel expert David and Fam,
the same expert who had viewed Pierre Lagrange's fake Pollock
(34:09):
in London and telephone on the November twenty eleven. The
game was up. By then, basically we knew that it
was all hopes since things were fakes in a truly
baffling move and was lobbying an FAM to have the
(34:29):
burned fragment of a fake Clifford Steel painting added officially
to the Clifford Steel Museum. This was the very same
painting Carlos Bergantino's had burned with a hair dryer and
told Glyfa to say had caught fire in a car.
I was absolutely astonished that Anne wanted me to write
(34:51):
some kind of a letter about the Clifford Store Museum
accepting this flagman of the painting, and I told him
point blank, it's not up to me to do it.
It's if anyone's going to do it. It It would have
to be approved by director, by the Bold and so forth.
So it was to me um a phone call that
(35:13):
left me spaceless. Even at the time when I wrote it,
I bore the exclamation marks after that note because of
extraordinary On the morning of December two, two thousleven high
pitched scream could be heard from the bedroom of a
(35:34):
hotel suite in Miami, Florida. The annual Art Basel Fair
was about to begin, and Domenico and Eleanor Desole had
arrived early to get premium tickets. Eleanor was scrolling through
The New York Times on her iPad when a story
jumped out. Domenico rushed from the shower to see what
(35:54):
was wrong. Too shocked to speak, Eleanor handed him the
iPad her hands shake. King Patricia Cohen's first story in
The New York Times had mentioned the Knoedler and publicly
identified Glefara Rosales for the first time, but it was
a short piece and the Disules may not have noticed it.
(36:15):
That morning's follow up about Pierre Lagrange and his fake
Pollock made the news all too clear. One of the
soles first calls that morning was to Ann Friedman and
swore to the Disilas that the Lagrange Pollock described in
the New York Times was real. So were the rest
of the works in the David Herbert collection, including the Disuls, Rothko,
(36:39):
the Dosuls demanded evidence who was this mysterious Mr x Jr.
Through whom all these paintings had flowed, who was glefi Rosales,
for that matter, and promised she would soon be learning
the identity of the mysterious collector herself. The Soles were
incredulous and had previous they told them she did know
(37:01):
the collector. As one of the Dess lawyers later put it,
the most basic tenet of authenticity for the Rothco was
a lie. Neither Anne Freedman nor the Nodler Gallery knew
the true identity of their supposed client. Among the dozen
(37:21):
or so victims who began peppering the now defunct K
Noodler Gallery with legal demands for their money back was
Francis Beatty. To her shock and horror, Francis discovered that
a Clifford Steel painting she had purchased from Anne in
two thousand was likely just another fake from the supposed
David Herbert collection. Beatty had loved Clifford Stills paintings from
(37:43):
her earliest days. They're incredibly exciting. They look like sort
of lightning or jagged cliffs in an abstract way. They
have enormous electricity and sometimes. The colors are very I
would say, danse intense, and they have a tremendous sense
(38:05):
of movement, very dynamic. Finding them was a challenge. Clifford
stills are rare. You don't know where in the current
universe there's going to be a Clifford still for sale
and one that someone might let you get your hands on.
(38:25):
I mean, they're not sitting there in people's inventory. I
had a colleague who came in and said to me,
could you sell a great Clifford still, a great early still?
And I said, you bet you I can, And he said,
I know where there is one. There's a beauty, and
(38:45):
Ann Friedman has it. Francis rushed over to the nler.
She was stunned. The painting was perfect, the Jagon mountains,
the colors, perfect size. I had sold to pictures of
this period, so over a period. It took me, you know,
fifteen years to find the first one, twenty years to
(39:08):
find the second one. But of course it had no provenance.
Oh I remember very specifically because I said, this has
no provenance and it hasn't been exhibited anywhere. And so
Anne wrote me an email saying that it belonged to
(39:34):
a Mexican who had gotten it directly from Clifford Still
and had been in the same family that entire time
to close the deal and made an unusual promised to Francis.
If we did the deal, she would reveal the provenance
(39:56):
to me. I showed it to a wonderful restorer, very
good friend of mine, Alan goldrac who had been the
restorer who had unwrapped all the Clifford stills for the
Metropolitan Museum's retrospective. Francis also showed the painting to David
(40:17):
an fhem as much the Clifford still expert as the
ultimate connoisseur for Pollock and Rothcobe. He had liked the
picture very much. Despite the positive affirmations from experts, Francis
remained wary. So I said to Anne, I need a
Nodler guarantee, and you have to guarantee the authenticity of
(40:41):
this picture with Noler behind it, so if the authenticity
is questioned, you return the money to the client. And
what did she say to that? Fine? And I got
her to write a guarantee of authenticity on the Clifford still,
(41:05):
and I gave a copy of it to the client.
And at that point I thought you know what, We're
safe if the worst thing possibly happens and something goes wrong.
It is a Nodler guarantee, and no Ler is the
last place in the world that would renege on any
(41:28):
kind of guarantee. With that baby and two fellow dealers
put their money down about one million dollars. They sold
it for one point one million to the collector who
had pushed for the still in the first place. An
entire decade passed no issues with the painting. Popped up curiously, however,
(41:53):
and failed to keep her side of the bargain with Francis.
She didn't tell me who she got picture phone. I
probably should have pressed her on that, but I didn't
because I think once I had obtained this Nodler guarantee
in writing, I thought that I had sort of an
(42:16):
impregnable defense. So fast forward to two thousand eleven, Pierre
Lagrange shouts it from the rooftops that he's paid seventeen
million dollars for a fake Pollock. What was your reaction
to that news. I'm not sure I want to say
(42:37):
it on air. I mean, holy moley, um, we were
absolutely stunned. We went and did the forensic testing. I
think it had some kind of white in it that
hadn't been invented back then. And also the pigments were
(42:58):
of more recent vintage, right. God, So at that point,
obviously you had to call your customer, who who bought
the painting. We said, we're going to give you back
your money and sue and I think we um We
sent him a check for one million, one thousand, but
(43:20):
he said to us that he thought the picture was
now worth three million and he was gonna sue us
for that much money. I mean the suit must have
cost three yo dollars. And then we finally settled. You
settled with Ndler, which, of course, by now was almost
like a dead man walking, right. I mean it had
(43:42):
closed in officially, so you were you were negotiating with
a company that did it even exist. Right. We were
in the same boat as everybody else. Little by little,
lots of people were settling to get something. So we
were out the million dollars. We were out the cost
of the litigation a million four so maybe it was
(44:05):
more like a million plus. Well, that must have haunted
you for a long time. It was a terrible thing
for the profession. I'm the secretary of the Art Dealers
Association of America. And I'm an art historian, and I
love the art dealing profession. It's full of wonderful, devoted
(44:29):
experts and people who love art. And this was just
a devastating blow. So it was on everybody's lips, and
it made you feel like you've gone from decades and
decades devoted to doing the right thing and suddenly you
were all like in cahoots with al Capone. Yeah, it
(44:53):
was hugely distressing. What happened to the painting. By the way,
it's funny because we got the painting back and it
was in our basement and I really wanted to take
it out, take it to, you know, the Clifford Still Museum,
(45:14):
and you know, stand it up and look at other
pictures of that vintage and figure out how why I
had how I had made this mistake. There's no question
that was a fake. But it was so damn good.
It was in the story to Richard Fannigan and Company.
And when we closed, when Richard left that building, I
(45:37):
don't know where it is and I kind of have
a mental note of trying to track it down and
find out where it is. By March two, twelves had
a team of lawyers harnessed up. Domenico Disle was a
(45:58):
gentle family man, but being conned out of eight point
four million dollars set of fire raging in his Italian soul.
He wasn't just set on getting his money back. He
wanted triple damages, a so called ko penalty for what
amounted to a conspiracy among all of the defendants. A
(46:19):
trio of top art fraud lawyers began inundating the Knodler
with demands for documents. The number of artists, the number
of unknown works that cheap prices, know they're got them
for the incredible markups they sold them for. That's in
the papers we got in the first few months. Those
are just invoices from the nother gallery. I spoke with
(46:43):
the Disols attorneys, Aaron Crowle, Emily rice Baum and Gregory
Clark at their law offices, so we had discovery from
them relatively early on with those documents. So you know,
that's a big part of the case, right from the beginning,
right and also early on before Jamie Martin had had
(47:04):
the opportunity to examine a number of different works like
he had looked at Pierre le Grange's work. I think
he had looked at ours. We were telling the judge,
this is like you go to Canal Street and there's
a table. You don't have to one watches fake. They're
all fake. You don't have to test them all to
know that they're all fake. And sure enough, Jamie proved
(47:25):
that it was the same paint for the Pollock, for
the roth Cooe. You know that spread ten years apart.
Over the course of the two years between when we
filed the case and leading guilty. Over the course of
that time, Jamie Martin ultimately had access to eighteen works
out of the fort on the not list, and he
proved every single one was a fake. What emerged was
(47:51):
what we showed that trial with the witness testimony, that
there were no experts who authenticated these paintings. For another
it just didn't happen. The lawyers came up with six
red flags clear indicators of a criminal enterprise. The one
that seems to interest people the most is the profits.
(48:12):
And you know, our expert testified that ordinarily in the
secondary market, the dealer will make twenty to thirty percent
of a profit, so they buy for a hundred dollars
they sell for a hundred thirty dollars, they get to
pocket thirty dollars. No, there was making hundreds from the
very beginning, making hundreds of percent profits, and as the
(48:34):
scheme went on, it multiplied to six hundred, seven hundred,
eight hundred percent. Now instead of just a little deep
in corn on paper, you had a pollock, you had
a bunch of them, had a bunch of them, and
so you know, and the profits were a loan, a signal.
And I think this is that hit the jurors the most,
(48:55):
that the profits were a signal that, like, something was
wrong here. But the number of was wildly off the charts.
By early two thousand thirteen, the lawyers for the Soles
had done enough discovery to feel they had a rock
solid case. Jason Hernandez wasn't so sure, and assistant district
(49:18):
attorney specializing in fraud cases in New York City's Second District,
Hernandez had come to be wary of fraud cases built
on the testimony of experts. That was testimony the defense
could easily counter with experts of their own. After all,
who was to say which expert would be right? Hernandez
knew the case would be an enormous challenge. There were
(49:42):
an unusually large number of prominent people who seemingly were
going to stand by the paintings and say that they
were real. That is uncommon, and I could see right away. Well,
you know, how do you get over that? Because if
the person selling them is showing them to all of
these esteemed people and they're saying, yep, looks right to me,
(50:04):
looks good to me, that's not a criminal case anymore.
Despite the mountain of lawsuits, only one case would go
to trial Eleanor and Domenico de Soule versus the defendants
and friedmanfro Rosalee, carlos Bergantino's Michael Hammer and the NLAR Gallery.
(50:27):
That's next time on art fraud, Why looks so awfleet
tragic but on a happy face? Smiling can work like magic,
but on a happy face. Take off the gloomy mask, tragedy.
It's not your style. You look so good that you'll
(50:50):
be glad you decided to smile. Art Fraud is brought
to you by I Heart Radio and Cavalry Audio. Our
exact of producers are Matt del Piano, Keegan Rosenberger, Andy Turner,
myself and Michael Schneyerson. We're produced by Brandon Morgan and
Zach McNeice. Zach also edited and mixed this episode. Lindsay
(51:13):
Hoffman is our managing producer. Our writer is Michael Schneyerson. Happy, Happy,
m Hey Elizabeth, you're the co host of that new podcast,
(51:34):
Ridiculous Crime. Yes, I am. You know what's ridiculous? Carpeting
in kitchens and bathrooms? Oh wow, you are good. But
you know what's also ridiculous? A sixteen year old who
breaks into a car dealership and steals guy theories, Lamborghini,
what yes to impress a girl. I'll tell you all
about it on Ridiculous Crime, our podcast about absurd and
outrageous capers, heist and cons. It's always murder free and ridiculous.
(52:00):
Listen to Ridiculous Crime on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Go. It's
me Carolyna reviewed as with my front Honey German, and
we're excited to announce season three of our podcast Life
in Spanglish. We are the admanas you wish you had,
talking to you about all life has to offer, with
topics like dating, sex, relationship, life. Ela Latina expect us
(52:25):
to give you only the real advice you wish your
Abelita would give you, without the chunk black Listen to
Life in Spanguish every Friday on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. From Cavalry Audio,
the studio that brought you The Devil Within and The
Shadow Girls, comes a new true crime podcast, The Pink
(52:47):
Moon Murders. The local sheriff believes there may be more
than one killery. They were afraid you just face it
out in that area. The family was targeted, most of
them targeted while they were sleeping. Who could commit such
horrible crimes? And why? Follow The Pink Moon Murders on
the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts
We've all felt left out, and for people who moved
to this country, that feeling last more than a moment.
We can change that. Learn how it Belonging begins with
us dot org. Brought to you by the AD Council. Hey, Hey,
this is John O'Bryant, entrepreneur and a fellow builder just
like you. Thanks to the help of I Heart Radio
and Prudential Financial, I'd like to present to you my
(00:23):
brand new podcast is called Building the Good Life, where
each week a special friend and I will unpack and
talk in detail about financial literal building, generational well building,
that community building the best version of you. Make sure
to listen to Building a Good Life on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast.
(00:45):
I'm time onto you and I'm the host of Calling BS,
the first podcast about purpose washing. In this show, we
dig into the difference between what organizations say they stand
for and the actions they are actually taking. Let's call
BS on the businesses that deserve it and also make
some concrete suggestions for cleaning that BS up. Listen to
(01:07):
Calling BS every Wednesday on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If you
went into the Gucci store and bought a handbag. You
wouldn't ask the salesperson is this a real Gucci? You know,
you would take that as a sort of given fact.
So the fact that Nodler, you know, was the oldest
(01:29):
gallery in the city. It was a hundred and sixty
five years old. It had worked with these artists in
their lifetimes, and if you wanted to buy an abstract
expressionist painting, that's kind of the place you would go
to do that. By the mid two thousand's, Carlos and
as forgery scheme was raking in enormous profits, and yet
(01:50):
Era was miserable. Later, she told a federal judge that
Carlos beat her frequently, once going so are as to
break her nose. The beatings, she claimed, were to keep
her from bailing out of the family art business. Quitting
wasn't an option. Carlos warned that if she left, he
(02:12):
would kidnap their daughters solely and take her to Spain,
and Glyphra would never see her again. Ironically, gas relationship
with Ann Friedman was blossoming. Rosalees demanded and received higher
fees from Knobler as the fake paintings continued to sell
(02:35):
for exorbitant prices. Ultimately, GPA would rake in more than
twenty million dollars in her fourteen year forgery career. With
that money came a commensurate lifestyle. In two thousand five,
Carlos and Gpa bought an enormous square foot house in
(02:56):
the North Shore neighborhood of Sam's Point on Long Island's
Gold Coast. The Mediterranean style home came with a two
point three million dollar price tag, quite a property for
a local art dealer and her seemingly unemployed partner. Friends
and neighbors found the home beautiful and impressively furnished, but
(03:16):
not without its quirks. The odd thing about it was
they were paintings everywhere, and not just hung on the
walls either. One time we went over to pick up
the kids, my wife and I were in the house
and we were kind of blown away by the art
that we saw in the house, because, you know, Glafire
always had the appearance of being successful. My name is
(03:38):
Brian Scarlatto's I'm an attorney with Costellans and Fink in
New York City, and I specialized in criminal tax investigations
and prosecutions. Brian was a family friend of Cfia and
Carlos and Sam's point, their children attended the same school. Later,
when Golf's legal troubles began, she retained Brian as her attorney.
(04:00):
We knew she had a gallery in New York, but
when we went into the house, you know, we recognized
several pieces that that we knew. There were warholes. I
believe there was a Picasso, there was a Rothco, and
others like that. And as I said, there was also
very interesting furniture, and there was just so much art
that some of it was leaned up against the wall
(04:21):
because there wasn't enough room to hang it all on
the walls. And you know, my wife and I think
just assumed that they were using their art as storage
for their gallery. But when you go into somebody's house
and you see warholes in a Picasso and a Rothco
and other things that you recognize, it's it's sort of,
you know, overwhelming. You know, it was also casual. I
remember remarking to my wife on the way out that
(04:43):
you know, oh my god, they have this this little dog, Rocky,
who was running around embarking. And I remember saying to
my wife, what if Rocky were to pee on a Picasso.
I mean it just and it seemed like it could happen, because,
as I say, things were just stacked up against the wall.
They were always very elegantly dressed, you know, nice cars,
in a very nice house, and they seemed to travel
the world, and they also knew a lot about art.
(05:06):
And so they were my friends who were the art
dealers and had a gallery. And Friedman was also living
the good life. Ndler was trafficking almost exclusively in the
David Herbert collection of fake Rothko's, to Coonings and pollocks,
and had a knack for reaching out to buyers that
(05:27):
were exceedingly wealthy but not necessarily well informed. Domenico and
Eleanor de Sole walked into the Ndler in late two
thousand four in search of a Shawn Scully painting. Scully
was a contemporary abstract artist. The Soules, profond of Domenico Disle,
was just stepping down as president and CEO of Gucci
(05:49):
and was becoming designer Tom Ford's partner in a new
fashion company. The Soles had an ocean front home in
Hilton Head, South Carolina, and needed art to hang on
its walls and didn't have a Shawn Scully painting to
sell them. She did, however, have an amazing Mark Rothko,
as she had done so many times before, and enchanted
(06:12):
her prospective buyers with the story of the ex family,
David Herbert and the marvelous downtown art world of the
nineteen fifties where artists sold works out of the back
of their studios for cash. The Desoles glowed with excitement.
They had never paid anywhere close to eight point four
million dollars for a painting before, but it was a Rothco.
(06:35):
The very name of the painting, untitled nineteen fifty six,
evoked images of the troubled artist in his upper East
Side carriage house, working late into the night. Like so
many other paintings in the David Herbert collection, the work
was notably smaller than a typical Rothco. Larger ones went
for tens of millions of dollars. Once again, the painting
(06:57):
had no real provenance, nor was it in the Rothco
catalog resume, but Anne said she had no doubt the
magnificent painting they were gazing at would soar in value
once it was placed in a future supplement to the
catalog resume. The eight point four million dollar Rothko was
sold and hung in the Dosoles hilton Head family home.
(07:20):
Eleanor later testified that friends would stop by just who
and ah over it? But what was a Rothko compared
to a top of the market Pollock. Ever since Anne
had hit a wall with the Leavey Pollock, she had
pressed life for another. By two thousand seven she had
(07:41):
it in hand, a classic drip painting with a silvery cast.
Fully deserving, Anne thought of the seventeen million dollar price
tag she attached to it. Through a pair of middleman dealers,
a transparency of the painting found its way to a
Belgian born financi or named Pierre Lagrange. La Grange was
(08:03):
a hedge fund manager, one of the richest men in London.
He was drawn to the Pollock, but, like Jack Levy,
he wanted assurances that the painting was authentic. Fortunately, Lagrange
wasn't asking for an official eye far evaluation of the painting.
He did want to be sure that the Pollock Krasner
Foundation would authenticate the work. This was a problem for Anne.
(08:26):
The Pollock Foundation had stopped authenticating any new works purporting
to be Pollocks. As for the Pollock catalog, resume, its
last and final supplement, had been released in nineteen ninety four,
and had the clout to arrange a meeting with the
Pollock Krausner Foundation lawyers, in part because one of the
lawyers was also her lawyer. She talked up the painting
(08:49):
and stressed the importance of updating the entire catalog resumee
to be reprinted in full color. It was our only
shot to have the painting added. Officially, the lawyers murmur
and hummed, but the word authentication never quite entered the room.
Anne had to think fast or risk losing the biggest
sale of her career. On March eighteenth, two thousand seven,
(09:14):
Anne wrote to Lagranges Camp and told them exactly what
she thought the English collector wanted to hear. Quote. The
Poblock Krasner Foundation has stated that they are intending to
update and republish the catalog resume in full color and
also in an online version. Every detail of the email
was a lie. Lagrange and his chief lawyer, Matthew Johnson
(09:38):
found the email less than persuasive. They wanted reps and warranties,
as Donson later put it, which was to say legally
binding language that the painting would be authenticated, and that
it would appear in the next catalog. Resume Friedman turned indignant. Quote.
The distrusting and demanding language in this agreement of sale
(09:59):
is not and keeping with the familiar and widely accepted
standards and practices in the art business, she huffed. In
her written response, it veers far from the spirit and
understanding of our original agreement. I have not been confronted
by anything like this in my thirty four years of
experience as an art dealer. We have given you our word.
(10:21):
Our invoice is always our legal guarantee, and has previously
stated if this painting has proved not to be by
the hand of Pollock, the sale would be canceled, the
painting return to Ndler, and the full purchase refunded to
you end quote. The hypocrisy of the letter was breathtaking,
but Ann's huffing and puffing seemed to do the trick.
(10:44):
On November six, two thousand seven, Pierre Lagrange completed his
purchase of the silvery Pollock. The Knodler provided a written
guarantee that Lagrange's pollock was from a quote private collection
of the heir to a collector who had obtained it
directly from Jackson Pollock end quote. The air insisted on anonymity.
(11:06):
With seventeen million dollars rendered, Pierre Lagrange gave his new
painting a place of honor in his London penthouse, unaware
that its true value was little more than the canvas
it was painted on. More art fraud in a minute. Hi,
(11:36):
this is Bill Clinton, and I hope you'll join us
on why am I telling you this? And Why am
I telling you this? Why am I telling you this?
And why am I telling you this? Because it is
your future on the line, where we'll talk about ideas
that are improving our world and deserve more attention. After
years of being interviewed, I'm looking forward to doing the
interviewing to celebrate people's unique gifts that make life more
(11:59):
interesting and affirm that our common humanity matters more. Please
join me on who Am I telling you this? For
conversations with some of the most fascinating people I know.
We'll share stories and talk about ideas that deserve more
attention and why we should be hopeful and optimistic about
our future. Listen to Why Am I telling You This?
(12:20):
On the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever
you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Elizabeth Dutton and I'm
Elizabeth Dutton. Wait sorry, do you want to see your name?
(12:42):
I'm good, good, go ahead. We're the hosts of Ridiculous Crime.
People love true crime, right, the mystery, the intrigue, the
human frailty totally. But what a lot of us don't
like is the blood and the guts and the mayheman Wait, wait, wait, wait,
some of us do like the mayhem. Okay, let's be real,
there's nothing funny about murder. Okay, that's our show gives
you stories like the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr. And
(13:04):
the Max Headrooms signal hijacking. Oh so you mean ridiculous
stories like the UK cat Shaver and Pablo Escobar's cocaine hippos. Yeah,
stories like the dudes who stole Buzzy, the animatronic whatever
he was from Disney World, and the woman whose husband
tried to kill her but came back from the dead
and surprised him at her own funeral. Yeah, that does
sound good. You can find this new podcast, Ridiculous Crime
(13:26):
all over the place, the I Heart Radio app, the
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't
know how you live ridiculous crime. What grows in the
forest trees? Sure? No? What else grows in the forest,
Our imagination, our sense of wonder, and our family bonds
grow too, because when we disconnect from this and connect
(13:50):
with this, we reconnect with each other. The forest is
closer than you think. Find a forest near you and
start exploring. I discover the forest. Do orc Brought to
you by the United States Fourth Therapist and the AD Council.
Around the same time, Pierre Lagrange was acquiring his seven
figure Pollock Glafia, Rosalie's success was perhaps going to her head.
(14:14):
An opportunity for new business came up when her old
friend Heimi Andrade introduced Cfia to an ex notler dealer
named Julian Weissman. Rosalez spoke to Wiseman about potentially cutting
ties with Ann Friedman. She wanted a new start, she said.
As a show of good faith, she consigned three Robert
(14:35):
Motherwell paintings to Wiseman's gallery, who works were said to
be from Motherwell's Elegy to the Spanish Republic series. The
third painting from the series was ultimately sold by Wiseman
for six hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Mark blonde,
director of the Irish Kalila Gallery. Blondeau, like Lagrange, wanted
authentication and he got it. Jack Flamm and Morgan Spangler,
(15:00):
co directors of the Motherwell Foundation known as the Dadalus,
spent hours poring over the Blondo Motherwell. Its lack of
provenance bothered them, but they fell obligated to authenticate it.
The painting was just that good. Flam and Spangler spent
the rest of two thousand seven finishing Motherwell's catalog Resimee.
(15:24):
As they did, they noticed a troubling trend more Spanish
elegy paintings without provenance. There were seven in all, including
the one now owned by the Khalila Gallery. To the
foundation's dismay, four of the seven paintings were being sold
by the Knodler Gallery. Jack Flam insisted that all seven
(15:45):
Spanish elegy paintings be shown together at the Knodler and
resisted as long as she could, but ultimately she caved
and agreed. The Spanish elegies were spectacular, but curiously, they
were all mind exactly the same way. This was strange
for a painter who was known to vary his signature.
(16:06):
From picture to picture, three of the paintings had gone
from Glafira to Weissman, indicating that Rosalis had played her
side game. Likely to ann Friedman's surprise, now and admitted
the obvious. All seven paintings had come from the same
source for the moment, she refused to say who that source.
(16:26):
Was alarmed, the Dadalus Foundation demanded Ndler higher a widely
respected forensic art expert named Jamie Martin, to test two
of the disputed Spanish Elegy paintings. Martin also tested genuine
Motherwell paintings for comparison's sake. What Jamie Martin would do
(16:50):
is he will take a painting and he will investigate
all the aspects of the paint, from the frame to
the paints that are used. That's Jason Hernandez, Assistant District
Attorney to New York Second District, and the course of
his criminal investigation, Jason gleaned a wealth of knowledge about
the forensic testing process. He'll take an incredibly small slice
(17:12):
of the paint. He'll investigate the dust that's in the
crevices and the cracks of the paint, and he will determine,
you know what the composition of those materials are. He
will look for what he calls anomalies, meaning things that
shouldn't be there. And I'll give you a very very
simple example. I think it was the DuPont Corporation at
some point patented titanium dioxide, which really makes whites really white.
(17:35):
It was patented sometime and I don't know the seventies
I'm going to call it. But what that means is
that if I present to you a Pollock painting and
it has titanium dioxide in it, we have a problem,
because Jackson Pollock was dead before titanium dioxide was discovered
and patented. Jamie Martin's report was devastating if found that
(18:01):
a red pigment in one of these Spanish elegies hadn't
existed until years after the paintings were said to be made.
All seven of the Spanish elegies were immediately scrapped from
the upcoming Motherwell catalog Resone. The Kalila gallerby sued the Daedalist,
The Dadalist sued Weissman, the dealer. In the end, all
(18:22):
parties settled with money changing hands and the Kalila's painting
branded on its verso as a forgery. One day, while
Jamie Martin was studying the Spanish elegies, Jack Flam had
a memorable talk with Ann Friedman. She said, I don't
want to get Michael Hammer involved in this. He's very lititious.
(18:43):
Flam later recalled, despite her wish to keep the Spanish
elegy debacle off her boss's desk, Friedman and Hammer had
forged an alliance right from the start, As a lawsuit
would later allege, Anne had kept her boss in the
loop the sales of Rosales's paintings from the beginning. She
sent Hammer short write ups of every new painting that
(19:05):
came in. The writeups detailed how much the gallery paid
fear for each picture wholesale and how much Ndler had
sold them for retail to its customers. And yet years
later Anne felt afraid of Michael Hammer enough to worry
he might sue her. It seemed as if each partner
still kept some secrets from the other. From the start,
(19:28):
Knoedler's owner, Michael Hammer had kept all but invisible in
his spacious office at the gallery. Staffers rarely saw him,
and when they did, it was hard not to be
distracted by his artificial tan and a wardrobe that could
charitably be described as extravagance. Hammers roughly two dozen vintage cars,
(19:48):
some worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, only underscore the
sense that here was a man of almost unimaginable wealth,
free to do as he wished. By the fall of
two thousand nine, news of the fake Spanish Elegy paintings
had reached the prosecutor's office in the Second District of
New York. Investigators were now sifting through Ann Friedman's seventeen
(20:15):
years as head of the Ndler Gallery. Any hopes and
had of keeping Michael Hammer out of the loop were dashed.
Seeing law enforcement walk through the doors had jolted Hammer
to his core. That October, he terminated Ann Friedman's employment
from the Ndler Gallery. Her feet barely touched the floor
(20:38):
as security guards swept her through the gallery and out
the front doors under the Royal blue awning and was finished.
We'll be back after this. Adoption of teams from Foster
(20:59):
Care is a townfect not enough people know about, and
we're here to change that. I'm April Dinuity, host of
the new podcast Navigating Adoption, presented by adopt Us Kids.
Each episode brings you compelling, real life adoption stories told
by the families that lived them, with commentary from experts.
Visit adopt us Kids dot org, slash podcast, or subscribe
to Navigating Adoption, presented by adopt Us Kids, brought to
(21:22):
you by the U S Department of Health and Human Services,
Administration for Children and Families, and the ACT Council. If
you love true crime podcasts, you need to check out
True Crime Obsessed. Each week, hosts Patrick and Jillian recap
a true crime documentary everyone is talking about, and they
do it with humor, heart and just the right amount
(21:43):
of sass. When you go camping, you either find the
skull or you become the skull. That's the role. Patrick
and Jillian have covered everything from the Ted Bundy tapes
to Lula Rich, with plenty of art heists in between.
With over one hundred million downloads and third prety thousand
five star reviews on Apple Podcasts, true Crime Obsessed is
(22:05):
one of the most popular true crime podcasts in the world.
Find True Crime Obsessed wherever you listen. From Cavalry Audio,
the studio that brought you The Devil Within and The
Shadow Girls, comes a new true crime podcast, The Pink
Moon murders. The local sheriff believes there may be more
(22:27):
than one killery. It's been four days since those bodies
were found and there's no arrest as it this morning.
They were afraid it's face it out in that area,
what if they come back or whatever. It scared me
to death, like it scared me, I was very, very
intimidating to live here. Crazy to think you go to
sleep one night, maybe snuggling with your loved one and
never wake up, or maybe you wake up in a
struggle for your life, which you lose. Joint host David
(22:50):
Raderman as he explores one fateful night when evil descended
upon small town, Ohio, killed eight members of an Ohio
family in a pre planned execution. Family was targeted, most
of them targeted while they were sleeping. Followed the Pink
Moon murders on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts. Back in London, Pierre
(23:15):
Lagrange was having trouble of his own. Just two years
after buying his seventeen million dollar pollock, he was embarking
on a divorce. He was advised to sell his recently
acquired pollock and split the proceeds with his soon to
be ex wife. Lagrange was shocked to discover that neither
Southbes nor Christie's would accept the work. After all, the
(23:35):
Pollock had no provenance, and its surfaced only a few
years before. David and Pham, one of the world's most
respected authorities on modern American art, was just as skeptical
when he personally viewed the painting in Pierre Lagrange's London home.
It was the ninth of April two thousand and eight
(23:56):
when I paid a visit and all the whole collection,
but then suddenly we got to the Pollock. Pierre looked
at me. I looked at Pierre's advisor, and I think
I said, what do you think? And I wouldcall very clearly,
saying well, that has a history. And they were hoping
(24:20):
for some more words. But I never said the west
was silence. They were hoping that you would say the
painting was right. Yes, that's exactly what I did not say.
La Grange had the distinct feeling he was being toyed with,
(24:41):
and he was angry. Where was Ann Friedman anyway? News
of her firing hadn't yet made its way to La Grange.
The Knoedler was playing a vanishing game of its own.
The gallery flat out refused to take back Lagrange's Pollock,
nor would it be fund his seventeen million dollars. After all,
the gallery insisted the painting was genuine. Lagrange was seeing
(25:06):
read he wanted his money, and surfaced in November two
with an email meant to lower the temperature. Once again,
she insisted politely but firmly, that Lagrange's Pollock was one
of several newly discovered works that would be added to
a revised Pollock catalog. Resimee Ann's timing couldn't have been worse.
(25:28):
Just one month after her attempt to band aid the
Lagrange situation with yet another lie, Jackson, Pollock expert Eugene
Thaw shocked the art world with a declaration of seismic proportions.
Thaw declared that Legrange's silvery Pollock looked not right to him.
Thaw was in poor health and he wanted to be
(25:48):
sure his judgment was made clear, so in early two
thousand eleven, he repeated his claim in a videotaped Affidavid.
The painting looked fake to him, Thal said, AND's email
was immediately and entirely invalidated. It was now February two eleven.
Pierre Lagrange still had no interest in meeting Ann Friedman,
(26:11):
but word was that a grand jury was convening to
consider charges stemming from the fake Spanish elegies, and Anne
was said to be a subject of interest. Lagrange decided
he would meet with her after all, and suggested the
lounge of the Carlisle Hotel with its serpentine rooms of
(26:32):
overstuffed chairs. Anne arrived early to the Carlyle on a
wintry day and shows a small table in a cozy
lowlit corner. She recognized Lagrange from his long gray hair
and angular face as soon as he walked in, and
stood up to greet him and his attorney, Matthew Donson.
(26:54):
Pierre Lagrange, I'm Ann Friedman. It's nice to meet you,
she said, don't be so sure, Lagrange heath in his
Belgian accent. Lagrange ordered a cocktail, the lawyer a coke.
I've been looking forward to meeting you and discussing the painting,
and said, cheerfully, let's talk about how I can be helpful.
I want my money, the grand said, his voice rising
(27:16):
with each word. That's all and tried to stay calm.
She leaned forward a bit. It's hard to predict the market,
she noted. She said they might have to wait a
while before selling the painting, but she and La Grange
would be able to help each other out of this fix,
and said assuredly. That was when Lagrange lashed out. Quote.
(27:41):
He started screaming at the top of his lungs. I'm
going to set you on fire. Do you understand that
I'm going to set you on fire and you will
have no life. It will be over, and it will
hit the press, and you will be done. And tried
to reason with the Belgian and financier in a calm voice,
(28:02):
as if talking to an unruly child. Taking the painting
back simply wasn't an option. She said all the experts
agreed it was real, and so did she, and said
she offered to take the painting on consignment and try
to sell it to someone else. Lagrange was astounded. Anne's
(28:23):
solution was to find some other sap to unload the
painting on. Not only was that wildly irresponsible, but surely
illegal as well. The two of them would be selling
a painting Lagrange now believed was a fake. If Noodler
didn't immediately return his money and take back the painting.
Lagrange railed, he would destroy her reputation. He was furious.
(28:49):
Lagrange and Johnson stood up. The meeting was clearly over.
Everyone by now at the Carlysle was staring. This was
a real scene, and recounted. The waiter came over and
asked if she was all right. Later, Lagrange would deny
A's account of the meeting. He hadn't raised his voice,
he said. The calamity at the Carlisle merely confirmed Lagrange's
(29:16):
worst fears. He was sure his Pollock was a fake,
and Friedman persona non grata. At the Ndler could do
nothing to get him his money back. Lagrange's only move
was to squeeze the reclusive Michael Hammer, Noodler's chairman, in
whatever way he could to recover his seventeen million. Lagrange
had no idea how utterly dependent the gallery was on
(29:38):
the sales of Ga Feara Rosales's paintings. He did note
with interest that Hammer had put one of the galleries
two adjoining mansions up for sale for more than a year,
The seventeen thousand square foot Italian Renaissance building at nine
Street had been quietly shopped around town for fifty nine
(29:58):
point nine million dollars. That was a high price in
a bear market. It remained for sale until February two
thousand eleven, when it sold for thirty one million dollars,
half its original asking price. As it turned out, the
sale came shortly before the disastrous Carlisle Hotel meeting. Lagrange
(30:19):
knew exactly where seventeen million of the mansions proceeds should go,
but Noodler had no interest in giving any of that
money back to the London Hedge funder. The standoff with
Lagrange remained a secret through much of two thousand eleven
as lawyers attempted to resolve the situation. Then in October
came news of the Motherwell Spanish elegy settlement. Hi. I'm
(30:44):
Patricia co In and I'm a reporter for the New
York Times. Patricia's first scoop about the Noodler saga was
dated October eleventh, two thousand eleven. I had no idea
at that point that that story was going to kind
of explode into one of the biggest art frauds of
(31:05):
the last hundred years. I just started digging around and
even though that story was relatively short, I quickly realized
that there was a much bigger story buried beneath this
with with a lot more questions that came up, and
then I started digging. Cohen's story in the Times prompted
(31:28):
Lagrange to do something he should have done far earlier.
He called Jamie Martin, the forensic expert who had analyzed
the motherwells, and requested a test on the polit no
auction house would touch. The tests confirmed Lagrange's worst fears.
Various pigments in the painting had not existed in ninety nine,
when the painting was supposedly made. It was forensically impossible
(31:52):
for the work to be legitimate. The report Lagrange received
in late November of two thousand eleven brought full throated
legal action. In a searing letter to Michael Hammer, Lagrange
demanded that Knodler refund his seventeen million dollars in forty
eight hours or face a lawsuit. The letter would ultimately
(32:15):
be the last straw from Michael Hammer to Lagrange's astonishment.
Hammer responded by closing the Knoedler's brass doors permanently on
November eleven, sixty five years after it first opened for business.
(32:40):
Gafara wasn't actually named, but New York Times readers learned
the name of Ann Friedman and learned too that she
had been accused of selling fake Motherwell's while she was
president of Nodler. Was there a sense of starting to
connect the dots sort of? I remember that day very
well because it was a big scandal. There was an
b I investigation. We were talking about, you know, many
(33:03):
paintings in many millions of dollars, and I knew about
the Pierre Lagrange lawsuit, and so I had basically been
planning within the next week to have this you know,
big expose about this, and then when the gallery closed,
it was like, oh shit, we have to cover this,
(33:25):
but you know, we've got this really other, big story,
but I can't get into all of that yet because
not every single piece had turned down. So essentially I
covered that as a new story, um, giving enough detail
that we knew something was going on, but also not
essentially wanting to kind of expose what we knew was
(33:47):
going to be part of this really big takedown. Incredibly,
just two days before Noodler closed its doors and two
years since she'd been fired and placed a very strange
phone call who noted Clifford Steel expert David and Fam,
the same expert who had viewed Pierre Lagrange's fake Pollock
(34:09):
in London and telephone on the November twenty eleven. The
game was up. By then, basically we knew that it
was all hopes since things were fakes in a truly
baffling move and was lobbying an FAM to have the
(34:29):
burned fragment of a fake Clifford Steel painting added officially
to the Clifford Steel Museum. This was the very same
painting Carlos Bergantino's had burned with a hair dryer and
told Glyfa to say had caught fire in a car.
I was absolutely astonished that Anne wanted me to write
(34:51):
some kind of a letter about the Clifford Store Museum
accepting this flagman of the painting, and I told him
point blank, it's not up to me to do it.
It's if anyone's going to do it. It It would have
to be approved by director, by the Bold and so forth.
So it was to me um a phone call that
(35:13):
left me spaceless. Even at the time when I wrote it,
I bore the exclamation marks after that note because of
extraordinary On the morning of December two, two thousleven high
pitched scream could be heard from the bedroom of a
(35:34):
hotel suite in Miami, Florida. The annual Art Basel Fair
was about to begin, and Domenico and Eleanor Desole had
arrived early to get premium tickets. Eleanor was scrolling through
The New York Times on her iPad when a story
jumped out. Domenico rushed from the shower to see what
(35:54):
was wrong. Too shocked to speak, Eleanor handed him the
iPad her hands shake. King Patricia Cohen's first story in
The New York Times had mentioned the Knoedler and publicly
identified Glefara Rosales for the first time, but it was
a short piece and the Disules may not have noticed it.
(36:15):
That morning's follow up about Pierre Lagrange and his fake
Pollock made the news all too clear. One of the
soles first calls that morning was to Ann Friedman and
swore to the Disilas that the Lagrange Pollock described in
the New York Times was real. So were the rest
of the works in the David Herbert collection, including the Disuls, Rothko,
(36:39):
the Dosuls demanded evidence who was this mysterious Mr x Jr.
Through whom all these paintings had flowed, who was glefi Rosales,
for that matter, and promised she would soon be learning
the identity of the mysterious collector herself. The Soles were
incredulous and had previous they told them she did know
(37:01):
the collector. As one of the Dess lawyers later put it,
the most basic tenet of authenticity for the Rothco was
a lie. Neither Anne Freedman nor the Nodler Gallery knew
the true identity of their supposed client. Among the dozen
(37:21):
or so victims who began peppering the now defunct K
Noodler Gallery with legal demands for their money back was
Francis Beatty. To her shock and horror, Francis discovered that
a Clifford Steel painting she had purchased from Anne in
two thousand was likely just another fake from the supposed
David Herbert collection. Beatty had loved Clifford Stills paintings from
(37:43):
her earliest days. They're incredibly exciting. They look like sort
of lightning or jagged cliffs in an abstract way. They
have enormous electricity and sometimes. The colors are very I
would say, danse intense, and they have a tremendous sense
(38:05):
of movement, very dynamic. Finding them was a challenge. Clifford
stills are rare. You don't know where in the current
universe there's going to be a Clifford still for sale
and one that someone might let you get your hands on.
(38:25):
I mean, they're not sitting there in people's inventory. I
had a colleague who came in and said to me,
could you sell a great Clifford still, a great early still?
And I said, you bet you I can, And he said,
I know where there is one. There's a beauty, and
(38:45):
Ann Friedman has it. Francis rushed over to the nler.
She was stunned. The painting was perfect, the Jagon mountains,
the colors, perfect size. I had sold to pictures of
this period, so over a period. It took me, you know,
fifteen years to find the first one, twenty years to
(39:08):
find the second one. But of course it had no provenance.
Oh I remember very specifically because I said, this has
no provenance and it hasn't been exhibited anywhere. And so
Anne wrote me an email saying that it belonged to
(39:34):
a Mexican who had gotten it directly from Clifford Still
and had been in the same family that entire time
to close the deal and made an unusual promised to Francis.
If we did the deal, she would reveal the provenance
(39:56):
to me. I showed it to a wonderful restorer, very
good friend of mine, Alan goldrac who had been the
restorer who had unwrapped all the Clifford stills for the
Metropolitan Museum's retrospective. Francis also showed the painting to David
(40:17):
an fhem as much the Clifford still expert as the
ultimate connoisseur for Pollock and Rothcobe. He had liked the
picture very much. Despite the positive affirmations from experts, Francis
remained wary. So I said to Anne, I need a
Nodler guarantee, and you have to guarantee the authenticity of
(40:41):
this picture with Noler behind it, so if the authenticity
is questioned, you return the money to the client. And
what did she say to that? Fine? And I got
her to write a guarantee of authenticity on the Clifford still,
(41:05):
and I gave a copy of it to the client.
And at that point I thought you know what, We're
safe if the worst thing possibly happens and something goes wrong.
It is a Nodler guarantee, and no Ler is the
last place in the world that would renege on any
(41:28):
kind of guarantee. With that baby and two fellow dealers
put their money down about one million dollars. They sold
it for one point one million to the collector who
had pushed for the still in the first place. An
entire decade passed no issues with the painting. Popped up curiously, however,
(41:53):
and failed to keep her side of the bargain with Francis.
She didn't tell me who she got picture phone. I
probably should have pressed her on that, but I didn't
because I think once I had obtained this Nodler guarantee
in writing, I thought that I had sort of an
(42:16):
impregnable defense. So fast forward to two thousand eleven, Pierre
Lagrange shouts it from the rooftops that he's paid seventeen
million dollars for a fake Pollock. What was your reaction
to that news. I'm not sure I want to say
(42:37):
it on air. I mean, holy moley, um, we were
absolutely stunned. We went and did the forensic testing. I
think it had some kind of white in it that
hadn't been invented back then. And also the pigments were
(42:58):
of more recent vintage, right. God, So at that point,
obviously you had to call your customer, who who bought
the painting. We said, we're going to give you back
your money and sue and I think we um We
sent him a check for one million, one thousand, but
(43:20):
he said to us that he thought the picture was
now worth three million and he was gonna sue us
for that much money. I mean the suit must have
cost three yo dollars. And then we finally settled. You
settled with Ndler, which, of course, by now was almost
like a dead man walking, right. I mean it had
(43:42):
closed in officially, so you were you were negotiating with
a company that did it even exist. Right. We were
in the same boat as everybody else. Little by little,
lots of people were settling to get something. So we
were out the million dollars. We were out the cost
of the litigation a million four so maybe it was
(44:05):
more like a million plus. Well, that must have haunted
you for a long time. It was a terrible thing
for the profession. I'm the secretary of the Art Dealers
Association of America. And I'm an art historian, and I
love the art dealing profession. It's full of wonderful, devoted
(44:29):
experts and people who love art. And this was just
a devastating blow. So it was on everybody's lips, and
it made you feel like you've gone from decades and
decades devoted to doing the right thing and suddenly you
were all like in cahoots with al Capone. Yeah, it
(44:53):
was hugely distressing. What happened to the painting. By the way,
it's funny because we got the painting back and it
was in our basement and I really wanted to take
it out, take it to, you know, the Clifford Still Museum,
(45:14):
and you know, stand it up and look at other
pictures of that vintage and figure out how why I
had how I had made this mistake. There's no question
that was a fake. But it was so damn good.
It was in the story to Richard Fannigan and Company.
And when we closed, when Richard left that building, I
(45:37):
don't know where it is and I kind of have
a mental note of trying to track it down and
find out where it is. By March two, twelves had
a team of lawyers harnessed up. Domenico Disle was a
(45:58):
gentle family man, but being conned out of eight point
four million dollars set of fire raging in his Italian soul.
He wasn't just set on getting his money back. He
wanted triple damages, a so called ko penalty for what
amounted to a conspiracy among all of the defendants. A
(46:19):
trio of top art fraud lawyers began inundating the Knodler
with demands for documents. The number of artists, the number
of unknown works that cheap prices, know they're got them
for the incredible markups they sold them for. That's in
the papers we got in the first few months. Those
are just invoices from the nother gallery. I spoke with
(46:43):
the Disols attorneys, Aaron Crowle, Emily rice Baum and Gregory
Clark at their law offices, so we had discovery from
them relatively early on with those documents. So you know,
that's a big part of the case, right from the beginning,
right and also early on before Jamie Martin had had
(47:04):
the opportunity to examine a number of different works like
he had looked at Pierre le Grange's work. I think
he had looked at ours. We were telling the judge,
this is like you go to Canal Street and there's
a table. You don't have to one watches fake. They're
all fake. You don't have to test them all to
know that they're all fake. And sure enough, Jamie proved
(47:25):
that it was the same paint for the Pollock, for
the roth Cooe. You know that spread ten years apart.
Over the course of the two years between when we
filed the case and leading guilty. Over the course of
that time, Jamie Martin ultimately had access to eighteen works
out of the fort on the not list, and he
proved every single one was a fake. What emerged was
(47:51):
what we showed that trial with the witness testimony, that
there were no experts who authenticated these paintings. For another
it just didn't happen. The lawyers came up with six
red flags clear indicators of a criminal enterprise. The one
that seems to interest people the most is the profits.
(48:12):
And you know, our expert testified that ordinarily in the
secondary market, the dealer will make twenty to thirty percent
of a profit, so they buy for a hundred dollars
they sell for a hundred thirty dollars, they get to
pocket thirty dollars. No, there was making hundreds from the
very beginning, making hundreds of percent profits, and as the
(48:34):
scheme went on, it multiplied to six hundred, seven hundred,
eight hundred percent. Now instead of just a little deep
in corn on paper, you had a pollock, you had
a bunch of them, had a bunch of them, and
so you know, and the profits were a loan, a signal.
And I think this is that hit the jurors the most,
(48:55):
that the profits were a signal that, like, something was
wrong here. But the number of was wildly off the charts.
By early two thousand thirteen, the lawyers for the Soles
had done enough discovery to feel they had a rock
solid case. Jason Hernandez wasn't so sure, and assistant district
(49:18):
attorney specializing in fraud cases in New York City's Second District,
Hernandez had come to be wary of fraud cases built
on the testimony of experts. That was testimony the defense
could easily counter with experts of their own. After all,
who was to say which expert would be right? Hernandez
knew the case would be an enormous challenge. There were
(49:42):
an unusually large number of prominent people who seemingly were
going to stand by the paintings and say that they
were real. That is uncommon, and I could see right away. Well,
you know, how do you get over that? Because if
the person selling them is showing them to all of
these esteemed people and they're saying, yep, looks right to me,
(50:04):
looks good to me, that's not a criminal case anymore.
Despite the mountain of lawsuits, only one case would go
to trial Eleanor and Domenico de Soule versus the defendants
and friedmanfro Rosalee, carlos Bergantino's Michael Hammer and the NLAR Gallery.
(50:27):
That's next time on art fraud, Why looks so awfleet
tragic but on a happy face? Smiling can work like magic,
but on a happy face. Take off the gloomy mask, tragedy.
It's not your style. You look so good that you'll
(50:50):
be glad you decided to smile. Art Fraud is brought
to you by I Heart Radio and Cavalry Audio. Our
exact of producers are Matt del Piano, Keegan Rosenberger, Andy Turner,
myself and Michael Schneyerson. We're produced by Brandon Morgan and
Zach McNeice. Zach also edited and mixed this episode. Lindsay
(51:13):
Hoffman is our managing producer. Our writer is Michael Schneyerson. Happy, Happy,
m Hey Elizabeth, you're the co host of that new podcast,
(51:34):
Ridiculous Crime. Yes, I am. You know what's ridiculous? Carpeting
in kitchens and bathrooms? Oh wow, you are good. But
you know what's also ridiculous? A sixteen year old who
breaks into a car dealership and steals guy theories, Lamborghini,
what yes to impress a girl. I'll tell you all
about it on Ridiculous Crime, our podcast about absurd and
outrageous capers, heist and cons. It's always murder free and ridiculous.
(52:00):
Listen to Ridiculous Crime on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Go. It's
me Carolyna reviewed as with my front Honey German, and
we're excited to announce season three of our podcast Life
in Spanglish. We are the admanas you wish you had,
talking to you about all life has to offer, with
topics like dating, sex, relationship, life. Ela Latina expect us
(52:25):
to give you only the real advice you wish your
Abelita would give you, without the chunk black Listen to
Life in Spanguish every Friday on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. From Cavalry Audio,
the studio that brought you The Devil Within and The
Shadow Girls, comes a new true crime podcast, The Pink
(52:47):
Moon Murders. The local sheriff believes there may be more
than one killery. They were afraid you just face it
out in that area. The family was targeted, most of
them targeted while they were sleeping. Who could commit such
horrible crimes? And why? Follow The Pink Moon Murders on
the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts
Host
Alec Baldwin
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