Miami Art Dealer Is Charged With Selling Fraudulent Warhols
A Miami art dealer was indicted on charges that he sold fraudulent Andy Warhols to collectors and provided them with fake invoices and forged authentication documents to make them appear legitimate.
The indictment accuses the dealer, Leslie Roberts of Miami Fine Art Gallery, of going to elaborate lengths to convince buyers that the works were legitimate Warhols, including by using fake stamps and fraudulent identification numbers.
'To make the fraudulent art appear to be authentic pieces created by Andy Warhol, Leslie Howard Roberts utilized forged authentication documents that were purportedly provided by the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board, Inc.,' the indictment read. (The board ceased operations over a decade ago.)
Two other defendants were also charged with taking part in Mr. Roberts's scheme by posing as employees of a New York auction house 'to fraudulently authenticate artwork in order to conceal that the artwork was not created by Andy Warhol.'
Mr. Roberts, who was arrested on wire fraud and money laundering charges on Wednesday and released on bond, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The details of the indictment, which was filed in Federal District Court in Miami and unsealed on Thursday, align with a lawsuit filed last year against Mr. Roberts. The civil suit was filed by a family of art collectors who accused Mr. Roberts of duping them into paying millions of dollars for fraudulent Warhols, including the artist's famous colorful portraits of Queen Elizabeth and Marilyn Monroe.
At the time the suit was filed, Mr. Roberts denied selling the family forgeries, and he and his lawyers have been fighting the case in civil court.
'I don't believe anything was a forgery — everything looked good to me,' Mr. Roberts said in an interview with The New York Times in August. He added: 'I don't know where the authority is they say it's fake.'
But last week, a grand jury indicted Mr. Roberts on criminal charges related to the case. The same day, Mr. Roberts filed for bankruptcy.
Another defendant, Carlos Miguel Rodriguez Melendez, was accused of posing as an employee of a New York auction house and charged with wire fraud conspiracy. His lawyer, Nayib Hassan, said in an email that his client 'vehemently maintains his innocence and looks forward to the opportunity to present the full facts in a court of law.'
A third defendant's name is redacted from court papers.
Mr. Roberts has faced criminal charges related to forged artworks before. In 2015, he pleaded guilty to mail fraud and served a prison sentence after acknowledging to prosecutors that he and his children had defrauded customers by selling them forged paintings, according to court documents.
And in 1987, when he was in his 20s, Mr. Roberts was sentenced to prison time for defrauding a family member of millions of dollars when he was a young stockbroker.
The new criminal inquiry into Mr. Roberts became apparent this week when the local news captured the F.B.I. raiding his art gallery in the upscale Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami.
In the civil suit, filed last August, a family of art collectors — Matthew, Judy and Richard Perlman — accused Mr. Roberts of duping them into paying more than $6 million for fraudulent Warhols.
The lawsuit claimed that Mr. Roberts told the Perlmans that he could get them Warhols at a discount through his relationship with the Warhol foundation, and the family began buying works it thought were by Warhol. An amended version of the lawsuit lists more than 250 works that the Perlmans purchased, including original canvases (John Lennon and Albert Einstein for about $30,000 each) and silk-screens (John Wayne for $75,000; a collection of Maos for $325,000).
The partnership began to fall apart later when Richard Perlman and his wife approached Christie's to sell some of the works, and the auction house raised doubts about their authenticity. The suit said that two people then came to the family's Florida home with business cards claiming that they were appraisers from a rival auction house, Phillips, and declared the works to be authentic Warhols.
'Les Roberts betrayed the Perlmans' trust and went to great lengths to cover up his fraud,' Luke Nikas, a lawyer representing the family, said in a statement on Thursday.
In the interview in August, Mr. Roberts denied the lawsuit's version of events. He said Matthew Perlman had been an active partner in a joint venture they had arranged to purchase Warhols, saying that Mr. Perlman worked alongside him for 'every single one' of the art purchases. He claimed that all of the artworks had come from legitimate sources.
'I try to be more cautious than ever,' he said at the time, 'because of my past.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Politico
3 hours ago
- Politico
Chief Justice John Roberts warns anti-judge rhetoric can lead to violence
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — Chief Justice John Roberts issued another warning Saturday that heated political rhetoric aimed at judges can spur physical threats and violence. 'If you have somebody who's expressing a high degree of hostility to the court, on whatever basis … the danger, of course, is somebody might pick up on that. And we have had, of course, serious threats of violence and murder of judges just simply for doing their work,' Roberts said during an appearance at a judicial conference. He spoke the day after the Supreme Court issued its final opinions of the term, but he did not discuss any of the court's rulings. Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January, he has mounted withering attacks on federal judges who have blocked his executive orders and other policies on mass deportation, government funding cuts and ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. He has blasted some judges as Communists and even called for their impeachment. However, speaking to an audience of judges and attorneys, Roberts did not mention Trump by name. And while the chief justice said he's been prompted to issue public statements against such verbal attacks, he emphasized that he has done so in response to comments from both Republican and Democratic officials. 'I've been compelled for the past few years to make statements about people on the one side of the aisle, their views on judges, and on the other side. It's not politically associated in any way with one side or the other,' the chief justice said, apparently referring to two instances where he inveighed against Trump's comments and one where he criticized remarks by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Schumer apologized for his comments. Trump has not and even doubled down. Threats and violence against judges have increased in recent years. In 2020, an assailant targeting U.S. District Judge Esther Salas of New Jersey killed her 20-year-old son and injured her husband. In 2022, a man attempted to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. A state judge in Maryland was murdered in his driveway in 2023, and a state judge in Kentucky was killed at his courthouse in 2024. 'I think the political people on both sides of the aisle need to keep that in mind,' Roberts said about the possible progression toward violence. 'If you think the law is being not followed, you can address that legislatively. But threatening the judges for doing their job is totally unacceptable.' Roberts spoke about 24 hours after the high court released its final decisions in cases argued this term, handing wins to the Trump administration on nationwide injunctions, to states seeking to mandate age-verification for porn websites and to religious parents who want to pull their kids out of public school classes that use books with LGBTQ+ themes. The chief justice sounded relieved to be through the frenzied stretch of work the court typically completes by late June every year. He acknowledged that the harsh language the justices sometimes exchange in the most contentious cases leads to perceptions of a bitterly divided court. 'Particularly at the end of the term, we are offering opinions — decisions — where there is a lot of sharp division and some sharp adjectives employed,' Roberts said. Despite the sometimes rancorous words used, he insisted that the justices 'to a person [are] working hard to understand' their colleagues' thinking on the cases and whether there's an opportunity to achieve consensus. Roberts did say the pile-up of cases can be difficult to manage, and he suggested this year was worse than some others. He didn't say why, but the court heard the nationwide injunctions dispute on an emergency basis at the request of the Trump administration and held arguments May 15, about two weeks after arguments typically conclude for the term. 'We're all lawyers, and like lawyers you put things off 'til the last minute,' the chief justice said. 'There's nine of us. … People have their own idea of the schedule. It's part of my responsibility to make sure we're on the same page to the extent we can, so we don't have all 70 cases decided on the last day. And that's not easy.' 'Things were a little crunched towards the end this year. We'll try to space it out a little better next year,' Roberts added. Roberts described his job primarily as managing people and added the typical chief justices' lament that the position actually has little explicit power over the court's eight other members. He waffled a bit, however, on whether his colleagues uniformly defer to him on management issues. 'You can't fire people. You can't cut their pay,' Roberts observed. 'My colleagues have uniformly been gracious, I would say, over the last 20 years, in giving me the benefit of the doubt and understanding, 'Well, that might not be what I would do, but somebody's got to decide that for all of us. And you know, he's doing the best he can.' … I am very grateful for the fact that my colleagues generally recognize that, sort of, somebody has to do it.' Roberts spent about 45 minutes taking questions from Chief Judge Albert Diaz Jr. of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. It's one of three federal appeals courts Roberts has special responsibility for, with all emergency Supreme Court appeals from those circuits routed to him. During the exchange with Roberts, there was a brief mention of the importance of judicial independence, but no explicit discussion of claims that the Trump administration has defied some court rulings it disagreed with. The administration has denied defying those orders, even as it mounted withering attacks on the judges who issued them. As the discussion concluded, Diaz remarked: 'It's obviously a very challenging time for us as Americans.' He did not elaborate.
New York Times
13 hours ago
- New York Times
What Happened in the Closing Arguments of the Sean Combs Trial
The federal government and Sean Combs's defense team presented their closing arguments this week after extensive testimony in which the music mogul's ex-girlfriends said they were pressured to have sex with male escorts in drug-dazed marathon sessions. Mr. Combs is charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution, and has pleaded not guilty, saying the sexual encounters were consensual. Jurors are expected to begin deliberating on Monday, which will mark the eighth week of the trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Here are some key observations from the closing arguments: The Charges Sex Trafficking The federal prosecutor who delivered the government's closing argument on Thursday, Christy Slavik, emphasized to jurors that convicting Mr. Combs of sex trafficking required only one example of him coercing his girlfriends into sex with prostitutes. For examples of such coercion, Ms. Slavik pointed to Mr. Combs's 2016 assault on Casandra Ventura at a Los Angeles hotel that was captured on surveillance video, and a fight between 'Jane' and Mr. Combs in 2024 before he directed her to have sex with another man. Jane, who was identified by a pseudonym, testified that she repeatedly said 'I don't want to' before Mr. Combs asked, 'Is this coercion?' The next day, the defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo argued that Ms. Ventura, the singer known as Cassie, was a willing participant in the frequent sex sessions that Mr. Combs called 'freak-offs.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Business Wire
a day ago
- Business Wire
Kroll Settlement Administration Announces a Proposed Settlement in the NCB Management Services, Inc. Data Breach Litigation; If Your Personal Information Was Impacted by the Data Breach, You May Be Eligible to Receive Benefits
PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The following statement is being issued by Kroll Settlement Administration regarding In re: NCB Management Services, Inc. Data Breach Litigation. Who is this about? A proposed settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit called In re: NCB Management Services, Inc. Data Breach Litigation, Case No. 2:23-cv-01236-KNS (the 'Lawsuit'), which is pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (the 'Court'). The Lawsuit alleges that the unauthorized third-party access to NCB Management Services, Inc. ('NCB') systems identified on or around February 4, 2023 (the 'Data Breach') caused Class Members' Personal Information to be accessed, stolen, or compromised. Who is a Settlement Class Member? The Settlement Class includes all Persons in the United States whose Personal Information was compromised in the Data Breach disclosed by NCB on or about March 24, 2023, including all who were sent notice of the Data Breach. What does the Settlement provide? The Settlement establishes a $2,625,000 Settlement Fund to be used to pay for Claims Administration Costs; Service Awards to the Plaintiffs; attorneys' fees and expenses; Approved Claims for Cash Payments for Out-of-Pocket Losses & Lost Time; and Approved Claims for the Alternative Cash Payments. Settlement Class Members may select ONE of the following Settlement Benefits: Cash Payments for Out-of-Pocket Loss & Lost Time – reimbursement for certain documented out-of-pocket costs or expenditures, including lost time, incurred by a Settlement Class Member that are fairly traceable to the Data Breach (up to $2,500). Settling Class Members may submit a claim for reimbursement of time spent remedying losses attributable to the Data Breach ('Lost Time'), up to four (4) hours at thirty dollars ($30) per hour; OR Alternative Cash Payments – a flat cash payment, in an amount to be determined consistent with the Settlement. The Alternative Cash Payments may be increased or reduced pro rata depending on the total number of Settlement Class Members who participate in the Settlement, and the type of Settlement relief selected by Class Members. How do I get a Cash Payment? You must submit a Claim Form, available at to be eligible to receive either of the two (2) Settlement Benefits listed above. You must complete and file a Settlement Claim Form either online or by mail postmarked by August 26, 2025 including required documentation. What are your other options? Do Nothing: If you do nothing, you are included as a Settlement Class Member but you will not get money from the Settlement. You will be legally bound by the terms of the Settlement, and you give up any rights to sue for the claims asserted in this case. Exclude Yourself: If you do not want to be included in the Settlement and legally bound by decisions made by the Court, you must exclude yourself, or 'opt out,' by mailing a written request for exclusion to the Settlement Administrator to be received by August 26, 2025. If you exclude yourself, you will not get any Settlement Class Member Benefits because the Settlement no longer affects you. Object: You can remain a Settlement Class Member but submit an objection and explain why you do not like the Settlement. Written objections must be filed with the Court to be received by August 26, 2025. When is the Fairness Hearing? The Court will hold a Fairness Hearing on September 29, 2025 at 10:00 a.m. ET at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Courtroom 13-B, located at the James A. Byrne U.S. Courthouse, 601 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106. The purpose of the Fairness Hearing is for the Court to consider approval of the settlement, payment to Class Counsel for attorneys' fees of up to one-third of the Settlement Fund plus reasonable litigation costs up to $50,000, and an award of up to $2,000 for each Class Representative (for a total of $36,000). You may appear at the hearing yourself or through an attorney hired by you, at your own expense, but you don't have to. This is only a summary. If you have questions or want more information about this lawsuit, the settlement and your rights, visit call (833) 421-6696 or write to In re: NCB Management Services, Inc. Data Breach Litigation c/o Kroll Settlement Administration LLC, P.O. Box 225391, New York, NY 10150-5391.
