 |
 |
|
|
Fake Art Resold By FBI and US Post Office Antiques and the Arts Story Archive - 2001 The Fate of Fakes by Daniel Grant MIAMI, FLA -- After almost four years the case is closed. Or is it? Dewey Lane Moore pleaded guilty in early February to one count of mail fraud in his attempt to sell through a Florida auction house almost 300 flea market pictures that he had knowingly attributed to Degas, Frankenthaler, Johns, Manet,Matisse, Picasso and a host of other renowned living and deceased artists. As part of the plea agreement, Moore agreed to forfeit all but one of the 294 paintings to the FBI. Now comes the hard part: What should the FBI do with all those pictures. The FBI and US Postal Service generally don't want to give the fakes back to the person convicted of selling them for fear that they will be used in a future scam. However, the FBI maintains a database only of stolen art, not fakes and forgeries. There is no federal statute against intentionally selling counterfeit property, such as artwork. Jack Ellis, A U.S. Postal Service Inspector was startled to find that thousands of fakes confiscated by the government were allowed to return to the market. In 1995, "we asked the trial judge to let us destroy all the pieces we knew were fakes, but the trial judge instead ordered an auction of 11,000 of the counterfeit prints in order to repay the Postal Service for its costs of investigating this case. The prints were marked as fakes in small letters on the back and were accompanied by certificates stipulating that these are fakes." Other seized counterfeits in this case, were not marked at all and returned to their owners. "Our fear, of course, is that some of these works may get into the wrong hands. Cover the back of the print with a mat, lose the certificate that says that it is fake, and someone is back in business selling counterfeit art. It's very discouraging." Perhaps more discouraging is the fact that some members of the art trade made efforts to keep the Postal Service from incinerating the bulk of the fakes. I had a lot of offers from dealers." In another incident, this one investigated by the FBI, both the art trade and collectors sought to keep counterfeit works in circulation... |