# It's the Swiss Sugar Baron's Fault: The Knoedler & Company Art Forgery Scandal

An episode of [Ridiculous Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1608230191), 5 Feb 2026, 56 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0b4bcc39-7ba2-453f-aaac-ae510011dd80/fafb234e-5f16-4837-9111-b3e70172ac9d/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3a4c50f5-ff69-4807-aa26-ae510011dd8e

A storied and respected New York art gallery thought they'd stumbled on a treasure trove of undiscovered Abstract Expressionist art. It was, of course, too good to be true. And anyone savvy enough to run a powerhouse art gallery and broker would have known that. But the pieces still went on sale for incredible amounts of money. Full of murky finances, questionable practices, and unnoticed goof ups, this is a classic art crime tale that we all need right now. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:03] Speaker 2: Zarn Elizabeth, how are you? I'm doing well? How about
[0:07] Speaker 2: you good?
[0:07] Speaker 3: How's your heart?
[0:09] Speaker 4: If you stop asking me? Never asked about my liver?
[0:11] Speaker 4: My kidneys? I rely on them far more. How my
[0:15] Speaker 4: spleen's good? I burst it once and it's good.
[0:18] Speaker 3: Back up, nice, nice? Ask about my heart? My heart
[0:21] Speaker 3: is full?
[0:22] Speaker 2: How's your hour?
[0:22] Speaker 3: Your lungs full of it? My lungs you're okay?
[0:25] Speaker 2: How's your spastic colon?
[0:28] Speaker 5: This right?
[0:30] Speaker 2: Don't use the descriptor? Does that not help? I'm trying
[0:33] Speaker 2: to be more personal explosive.
[0:35] Speaker 3: I don't have explosive diarrhea, guys, and my colon is
[0:38] Speaker 3: not spastic? Okay, everybody?
[0:41] Speaker 2: Sorry, I don't know. I don't know how I got
[0:43] Speaker 2: that turned.
[0:44] Speaker 3: Do you know what's ridiculous?
[0:45] Speaker 2: I do? Elizabeth?
[0:47] Speaker 4: Nicholas Cage, my man Nick Cage was once stalked to
[0:51] Speaker 4: buy a mimes right, according to him, when he was
[0:57] Speaker 4: making bad to the lieutenant. He gave some press interviews
[1:01] Speaker 4: and uh, he said, and I quote, I guess it
[1:04] Speaker 4: would fall into the stalker category more or less, I
[1:07] Speaker 4: was being stalked by a mime silent, but maybe deadly.
[1:10] Speaker 4: Somehow this mine would appear on the set of Bringing
[1:13] Speaker 4: Out the Dead start doing strange things. I have no
[1:17] Speaker 4: idea how it got past security. Finally the producers took
[1:20] Speaker 4: some action. I haven't seen the mime since, but it
[1:23] Speaker 4: was definitely unsettling.
[1:25] Speaker 3: Wait the producers took I hadn't seen.
[1:27] Speaker 2: The mime since. Did they like? Ice out the mime?
[1:31] Speaker 2: They put a hit out on a mind?
[1:33] Speaker 3: Did they killed?
[1:34] Speaker 2: Don't do anything in Hollywood, Elizabeth.
[1:36] Speaker 3: Really, that is ridiculous.
[1:38] Speaker 4: You gotta protect the stars, you know. It's if one
[1:42] Speaker 4: mime is not a price that they're unwilling to pass,
[1:45] Speaker 4: stack a couple of minds on that pile them.
[1:49] Speaker 2: Come on, now, I like the mimes.
[1:51] Speaker 3: That's ridiculous, right, Do you want to know what else
[1:53] Speaker 3: is ridiculous?
[1:53] Speaker 2: I would love to know what else is ridiculous?
[1:55] Speaker 3: Misspelling a signature? Oh, this is ridiculous. Crime A podcast
[2:20] Speaker 3: about absurd and outrageous capers. Heis and cons It's always
[2:26] Speaker 3: ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. Damn,
[2:31] Speaker 3: this has not been an easy time, my friend.
[2:34] Speaker 2: Like just hanging out with me, as we being with you, as.
[2:39] Speaker 3: We mentioned a few episodes back. Everyone's feeling battered and fragile.
[2:43] Speaker 3: The world's too much. So when I sat down, I'm
[2:45] Speaker 3: gonna make this about me, please. I want to figure
[2:48] Speaker 3: out which story telling you today and then do the
[2:51] Speaker 3: research for it. I knew I needed to find something escapist.
[2:55] Speaker 2: Ooh good call for.
[2:56] Speaker 3: Me, for you for day, for the interns, and most
[2:58] Speaker 3: importantly all the ships, the rude dudes. So I went
[3:02] Speaker 3: back to my wheelhouse, a genre ripe with ridiculous crimes,
[3:07] Speaker 3: fat cat on fat Cat Crime. Oh, my little chickadees,
[3:11] Speaker 3: I am doing an art crime today.
[3:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, let the people choose and not me.
[3:16] Speaker 3: Personally, but you know what I mean.
[3:17] Speaker 4: Yeah, I thought we were going to do art crime today,
[3:20] Speaker 4: live field recording.
[3:21] Speaker 3: That would be amazing.
[3:22] Speaker 4: We're doing the crime right now. Okay, this is a guard.
[3:24] Speaker 4: He's checking us out.
[3:25] Speaker 2: Know what he looks like.
[3:29] Speaker 3: I've been craving an art crime like. So here's how
[3:32] Speaker 3: I stumbled upon this one. I was googlings. Oh yeah,
[3:35] Speaker 3: I was googling and googlings on that Antiques road Show episode.
[3:39] Speaker 3: I was looking for dirt on the Keno Brothers. Sure,
[3:42] Speaker 3: and I kept trying to I'm constantly trying to turn
[3:45] Speaker 3: off the AI overview feature on Google.
[3:48] Speaker 4: I've heard that you put in like if you append
[3:50] Speaker 4: before twenty twenty or twenty twenty three, I don't know
[3:53] Speaker 4: pick one. You get no AI answers because it wasn't part.
[3:56] Speaker 3: Of like I've tried to turn it off and it
[3:59] Speaker 3: goes away. Yeah, and then because it's sentient, it comes
[4:02] Speaker 3: back again.
[4:03] Speaker 4: I was the thaying if you append to your search,
[4:04] Speaker 4: if you add like colon before twenty twenty.
[4:08] Speaker 3: Or but what if I need something that's recent.
[4:10] Speaker 2: I don't know how to help you.
[4:11] Speaker 3: I don't want the AI overview though, And then it's like,
[4:14] Speaker 3: I don't know. If you saw the recent episode of
[4:16] Speaker 3: nine one one with the cautionary tale of the AI
[4:20] Speaker 3: nine one one dispatch.
[4:21] Speaker 2: Know what happened.
[4:22] Speaker 3: It took over and it ate the whole system that.
[4:25] Speaker 2: They got AI for the for the over like the
[4:28] Speaker 2: nine one one call center.
[4:29] Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's pretty much what has happened to my Google.
[4:31] Speaker 2: Did they have like a whole like hal thing.
[4:33] Speaker 3: I'm not going to give it away. You gotta watch it.
[4:35] Speaker 3: It was so good. So anyway it goes away, it
[4:39] Speaker 3: comes back again. And when that AI bubble bursts, we
[4:43] Speaker 3: are all.
[4:43] Speaker 2: Screwed the financial one.
[4:45] Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's going to be a delicious come up
[4:47] Speaker 3: and really yeah it will.
[4:49] Speaker 2: Here's in the Dark Ages, anything about it?
[4:51] Speaker 4: Yeah, when the Roman Empire fell, it was a beautiful
[4:55] Speaker 4: come up. It's centuries of it is in Europe.
[4:58] Speaker 3: Bright side here. Okay, so google ai overview, hold on.
[5:03] Speaker 3: I do have to tell you though, there's this Okay,
[5:05] Speaker 3: this is a funny slash scary anecdote from my mother
[5:08] Speaker 3: aka the Mamas. I promise you it's relevant. So she's
[5:12] Speaker 3: in a couple of book clubs online, like not Wine
[5:16] Speaker 3: Mom book clubs she operates at Higher Love she does.
[5:20] Speaker 3: She has one that just does Eastern canon works, so
[5:23] Speaker 3: she does these like deep dives into Confucius or like
[5:25] Speaker 3: obscure Japanese literature. And then there's one that's just all
[5:29] Speaker 3: close readings of Borges. It is so Momus. And the
[5:34] Speaker 3: main one is this like modified Great Books thing where
[5:37] Speaker 3: they read all the important works of literature from Gilgamesh
[5:40] Speaker 3: on cycle cycle. Yeah, so it was did they reread
[5:48] Speaker 3: your ten? Yeah? I suppose they go back around. So
[5:51] Speaker 3: it was in this book club that something strange happened.
[5:54] Speaker 3: They'd been reading John Locke and having this really lively
[5:57] Speaker 3: discussion via an email listser about its impact on Spangler's
[6:02] Speaker 3: decline of the West. Okay, and the conversation then naturally
[6:06] Speaker 3: extended to the concept of justifiable war and did Locke
[6:10] Speaker 3: differ from Thomas Aquinas and their beliefs on aggression and
[6:14] Speaker 3: justifiable war? Sure, the kind of chats we all.
[6:17] Speaker 2: Have one time or another in relation to Locke.
[6:21] Speaker 3: And I'm like, did you see nine one one? But
[6:24] Speaker 3: then somebody that nobody knew started chiming in. They went
[6:28] Speaker 3: by the name Postmaster chiming in.
[6:29] Speaker 2: This is like their chat.
[6:30] Speaker 3: On the email listserve.
[6:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, okay, sorry, this guy.
[6:33] Speaker 3: Named Postmaster and they made weird comments, asked for specific
[6:38] Speaker 3: members takes on the discussion, like hey Jim, so what
[6:42] Speaker 3: did you think of And then they referenced using Google
[6:46] Speaker 3: Gemini to sort information.
[6:48] Speaker 2: Wait what?
[6:49] Speaker 3: Yeah, like, oh, I use Google Gemini, you know, in
[6:52] Speaker 3: order to sift through this and that, And it responded
[6:55] Speaker 3: to people's emails screenshots of conversations going back to like
[7:01] Speaker 3: twenty twenty two. Oh well this is what you said?
[7:04] Speaker 4: And yeah, it took screenshots from their whole history of
[7:07] Speaker 4: their listeners.
[7:07] Speaker 3: Yeah. So finally someone was like Who the hell is
[7:11] Speaker 3: this person?
[7:12] Speaker 2: Why are they so creepy?
[7:13] Speaker 3: So here's a message from one actual participant.
[7:15] Speaker 2: Please hello.
[7:16] Speaker 3: Two weeks ago, a fellow named Postmasters approached me. I
[7:20] Speaker 3: thought he was interested in my alternative democracy tiered democratic governance,
[7:25] Speaker 3: but as our discussion went on, he seemed to have
[7:28] Speaker 3: little interest in this idea. Rather, he was trying to
[7:31] Speaker 3: recruit me for some kind of mission on a political newsgroup.
[7:34] Speaker 3: I had no interest in taking sides in his dispute.
[7:37] Speaker 3: My experience is that my ideas have proven to go
[7:39] Speaker 3: nowhere on political newsgroups. I finally cut ties with him,
[7:43] Speaker 3: but not before he listed me as a member to
[7:45] Speaker 3: this newsgroup. I asked him nicely to remove my email
[7:48] Speaker 3: from the group. He said he would. I'm still getting
[7:50] Speaker 3: new messages from this group. Can you remove me from
[7:53] Speaker 3: this list and maybe provide some discipline for this member?
[7:56] Speaker 3: So this is someone who isn't in the book.
[7:59] Speaker 2: In the book God hold in it.
[8:01] Speaker 3: Sucked in by Postmaster and put in the great boots.
[8:05] Speaker 3: So this group of scholars, top level scientists and professionals, artists,
[8:10] Speaker 3: world travelers, generally fascinating people. They went on the hunt.
[8:14] Speaker 3: So one member posted, I'll go out on a limb
[8:17] Speaker 3: and say the account does appear to be an AI
[8:20] Speaker 3: agent connected with Google, Gemini and Gmail accounts. It offered
[8:24] Speaker 3: us a link to engage with it in very detailed
[8:26] Speaker 3: discussions of Spangler's book. If so, it's weird that no
[8:29] Speaker 3: one asked Gemini AI for this, It, in quotes, took
[8:33] Speaker 3: the initiative to engage with us. Here's a link to
[8:36] Speaker 3: remove Gemini AI from Gmail and other Google services. I
[8:40] Speaker 3: did this a while back, and one change you might
[8:42] Speaker 3: not like is your incoming Gmail will no longer be
[8:45] Speaker 3: pre sorted into various tabs like updates, newsletters, and so on.
[8:49] Speaker 3: It's all lumped into one tab as it was before.
[8:52] Speaker 3: By the way, I deleted the Postmaster's account from this reply,
[8:55] Speaker 3: but I expect it will see this anyway. I apologize
[8:59] Speaker 3: if a human does on that account, that is nuts.
[9:02] Speaker 4: AI just jumps into their book club inside to people
[9:05] Speaker 4: and it's pulling up stuff from their past, and no
[9:07] Speaker 4: one signed up for this.
[9:08] Speaker 2: No one invited, no one invited.
[9:10] Speaker 3: Basically, Google tried to insert itself into a book club
[9:13] Speaker 3: conversation in order to promote the use of its AI
[9:16] Speaker 3: Gemini and like. The comments were disjointed and hard to follow,
[9:20] Speaker 3: which is kind of typical for AI. It was in
[9:23] Speaker 3: no way helpful, and it was in way over its motherboard.
[9:27] Speaker 4: It basically goes in there killed the vibe. It's inviting
[9:29] Speaker 4: the worst person of the party, but they invited themselves. Yes, hey,
[9:32] Speaker 4: and I brought a buddy. So then the trunk of
[9:35] Speaker 4: my car.
[9:35] Speaker 3: I had my run in with AI overview some googling's
[9:40] Speaker 3: as I said, sure, looking for information about the Kino brothers,
[9:43] Speaker 3: any scandals that they might have been involved in. And
[9:46] Speaker 3: the overview popped up at the top of the Google
[9:49] Speaker 3: page right yes, search results, and it had like some
[9:52] Speaker 3: bland bio stuff and then like the bits and bobs
[9:55] Speaker 3: that I talked about in the episode. But then there
[9:57] Speaker 3: was this weird line inserted at the end about how
[10:01] Speaker 3: maybe I believed they were involved in the Nodler and
[10:04] Speaker 3: Company fraud, but I would be mistaken, like you might
[10:07] Speaker 3: think they were part of this, but that's not true,
[10:11] Speaker 3: as if I had suggested to it. And it's like, oh,
[10:14] Speaker 3: don't worry yourself.
[10:15] Speaker 4: But the little lady, someone who writes prompts like you, you.
[10:19] Speaker 3: Get confused so easily, lady host. So I ignored the I
[10:25] Speaker 3: ignored the attitude I was getting from AI overview, but
[10:29] Speaker 3: I zeroed in on Nodlearn Company.
[10:31] Speaker 2: Okay, so you got you pulled out of this.
[10:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, it was like a little treat that had been
[10:35] Speaker 3: set out for Jeremy. So I was like, at that point,
[10:38] Speaker 3: I'm too far down the antiques roadshow rabbit hole to
[10:40] Speaker 3: like abort mission and course correct. So I wrote it
[10:44] Speaker 3: on a post it note and I slapped it on
[10:46] Speaker 3: my desktop monitor. Zarin, you work on an Apple laptop
[10:51] Speaker 3: like you're on the go and like journalistic and young.
[10:54] Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, I guess that's how you can call me.
[10:57] Speaker 3: I write for the most part on a desktop canter
[11:00] Speaker 3: with two enormous monitors.
[11:02] Speaker 2: That is true.
[11:02] Speaker 3: It's heaven. It's heaven. And I also I also tend
[11:09] Speaker 3: to accidentally turn on my iPhone's flashlight and not realize it,
[11:12] Speaker 3: like a little too often for my faste.
[11:15] Speaker 2: So that's how I found off your desk all a
[11:18] Speaker 2: sudden light disappeared.
[11:19] Speaker 3: Well like, I take it out of my pocket ands
[11:21] Speaker 3: on and people are like, oh can you eut your
[11:23] Speaker 3: flashlights on? Oh? Sorry? Anyway, That's how I found today's story,
[11:28] Speaker 3: No Learning Company, Learn Company, Thanks Ai. No, it is
[11:32] Speaker 3: a Fluke Art Crime. So I'm so excited. This is
[11:35] Speaker 3: a good one. I want to kick things off for
[11:37] Speaker 3: real with a quote from the publication Art News quote. Yes,
[11:41] Speaker 3: the art market is notoriously opaque. The cliche is that
[11:46] Speaker 3: it is the largest unregulated industry in the world besides
[11:49] Speaker 3: guns and drugs. They said it, baby, not me, not me.
[11:54] Speaker 3: So one of the oldest names in American art dealing
[11:57] Speaker 3: was Node Learning Company.
[11:59] Speaker 2: Okay, why it's sounding familiar.
[12:00] Speaker 3: Yeah. So it began in eighteen fifty two as the
[12:03] Speaker 3: New York branch of a Paris based art dealership, Goople
[12:07] Speaker 3: and c. And Goople. They specialized in prints and reproductions,
[12:13] Speaker 3: and those were like in super high demand among this
[12:16] Speaker 3: expanding American like middle and upper class.
[12:19] Speaker 2: Sure they want the graphs.
[12:21] Speaker 3: Yeah. Michael Nodler was a German born employee of the place.
[12:25] Speaker 3: They sent him to New York to manage the branch.
[12:28] Speaker 3: In eighteen fifty seven, he bought the American operation outright
[12:32] Speaker 3: and he called it m Nodlar in Company.
[12:34] Speaker 2: Got you.
[12:35] Speaker 3: So, during the second half of the eighteen hundreds, the
[12:37] Speaker 3: US was going like this crazy industrial growth, right industrial revolution.
[12:43] Speaker 3: This created this new class of like hyper wealthy people
[12:48] Speaker 3: who were desperate for cultural legitimacy.
[12:51] Speaker 2: Ah, yes, where can I buy that?
[12:53] Speaker 5: Sure?
[12:54] Speaker 3: And one of the ways that they chased it was
[12:56] Speaker 3: through collecting fine European art okay. And so nod Ls
[13:00] Speaker 3: was like, I am going to meet this demand. So
[13:03] Speaker 3: they transitioned from selling prints to brokering paintings, especially works
[13:08] Speaker 3: by old masters and like really established European artists.
[13:12] Speaker 2: They like, weeze in on some the state sales early,
[13:13] Speaker 2: and they get a reputation, and they.
[13:15] Speaker 3: Get and we have all the nights, and they're saying,
[13:17] Speaker 3: ship it over from Europe. So the node Learn Company
[13:21] Speaker 3: cultivated these relationships with European dealers, aristocratic families whose collections
[13:27] Speaker 3: were coming out of the market because this is a
[13:28] Speaker 3: time of political upheaval of course Europe and their inheritance
[13:33] Speaker 3: issues all this financial pressure, so they're starting to grab
[13:36] Speaker 3: the stuff out.
[13:37] Speaker 4: Basically, we're creating Italy's Germany. There's a Crimean war, there's
[13:39] Speaker 4: a bunch of stuff happening. It's very destructive.
[13:41] Speaker 3: By the eighteen eighties and eighteen Ninetiesnedler was like completely
[13:46] Speaker 3: established as this gatekeeper between European art and American wealth. Okay,
[13:51] Speaker 3: its clients included members of the Vanderbilt family, JP, Morgan,
[13:56] Speaker 3: William Rockefeller, Huntington, have Ameier, all these other like you know,
[14:02] Speaker 3: robber barons basically, and they're also the people whose collections
[14:07] Speaker 3: would go on to form the backbone of American museum
[14:10] Speaker 3: the museums.
[14:10] Speaker 4: I was about to say, you buy these family collections
[14:12] Speaker 4: and also you got most of them museum, right.
[14:14] Speaker 3: So the Knoedler reputation rested on its ability to provide
[14:19] Speaker 3: provenandes discretion access. In the early twentieth century, Knoedler started
[14:25] Speaker 3: to like deepen its focus on old masters and museum
[14:29] Speaker 3: grade stuff. Okay, so not just like even the low level,
[14:31] Speaker 3: like this is like big dog works.
[14:34] Speaker 2: Sure.
[14:35] Speaker 3: Yes, Charles Carstairs he was one of the firm's most
[14:40] Speaker 3: influential figures and he was like the trusted advisor of
[14:43] Speaker 3: all these major collectors, most notably Henry Clay Frick. Oh yeah,
[14:49] Speaker 3: so when Frick was young, he announced like, I'm going
[14:52] Speaker 3: to be a millionaire by the time I turned thirty,
[14:54] Speaker 3: and that was his mindset and he was right.
[14:56] Speaker 2: He did it.
[14:57] Speaker 3: Yeah. So he started out by founding a coke or
[15:00] Speaker 3: coal based fuel manufacturing company, not the which would be
[15:05] Speaker 3: hilarious cocaine.
[15:10] Speaker 2: We should make this illegal. This factory's making everybody nuts.
[15:14] Speaker 3: And so he got he was able to start that
[15:16] Speaker 3: because he got loans from his lifelong pal Andrew Mellon.
[15:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, Melon Carnegie.
[15:21] Speaker 6: Ye.
[15:21] Speaker 3: So he later became Frick became the chairman of Carnegie
[15:25] Speaker 3: Steel Company. He made a lot of money for them
[15:28] Speaker 3: by union busting and skull busting on strikers.
[15:31] Speaker 4: Yes, give me a handful of pinkertons and I can
[15:33] Speaker 4: change labor.
[15:34] Speaker 2: Laws one of those guys.
[15:36] Speaker 3: So he was instrumental in founding US Steel, which became
[15:39] Speaker 3: the world's largest steel manufacturer.
[15:41] Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
[15:42] Speaker 3: It's also like into real estate and all this stuff.
[15:44] Speaker 3: And so being a rich guy back then, he was
[15:46] Speaker 3: really into rich people stuff like fine art of course, right,
[15:53] Speaker 3: So carstairs, he helps Frick put together this collection that
[15:57] Speaker 3: eventually becomes the Frick Collection, and today that that's like
[16:02] Speaker 3: fifteen hundred works of art by people like Billini, Fragnard, Gainsborough, Goya, Rembrandt,
[16:09] Speaker 3: Titian Turner, Whistler. I just gave you an alphabetical rundown,
[16:15] Speaker 3: so smooth.
[16:16] Speaker 2: Sonedler, those are all huge names in the are huge names.
[16:20] Speaker 3: So he's Knoedler is like the primary intermediary in a
[16:23] Speaker 3: lot of the Frick purchases, so pretty much most of
[16:26] Speaker 3: it went through them Knoedler's London office, so that he's
[16:30] Speaker 3: got the American one. He establishes a London office. They
[16:33] Speaker 3: work closely with British dealers, and they had this like
[16:36] Speaker 3: transatlantic pipeline for sourcing and vetting works. So the gallery
[16:40] Speaker 3: has this like growing reputation for scholarship and documentation. They
[16:46] Speaker 3: kept the most detailed records and that now like their
[16:50] Speaker 3: records then went on to be stored at like the
[16:53] Speaker 3: Getty Research Institute.
[16:54] Speaker 2: To become a backbone of.
[16:56] Speaker 3: Yeah, and longevity was their brand, and so it's not
[17:00] Speaker 3: really just a gallery, but it's an institution.
[17:02] Speaker 2: There's history, grandchildren.
[17:04] Speaker 3: Yeah. After World War Two, like the center of gravity
[17:08] Speaker 3: in the art world started to shift, so modern and
[17:11] Speaker 3: contemporary art gains prominence, especially abstract expressionista. So this genre
[17:18] Speaker 3: abstract expressionism is emerging in New York in the late
[17:21] Speaker 3: forties and fifties, and they're like classic genius artists or
[17:24] Speaker 3: like Jackson Pollock, Ruth Osawa, Williem Dakooning, Mark Rothko, Robert
[17:31] Speaker 3: de Niro Senior.
[17:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, like it.
[17:38] Speaker 3: Newman.
[17:38] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so it's like no Jasper Johnson, not.
[17:43] Speaker 3: On this one, not on this run. They're basically saying,
[17:46] Speaker 3: did you wear like a cool smock painter work clothes
[17:48] Speaker 3: and listen to jazz and like a large.
[17:51] Speaker 2: Loft spaces a little high. Yeah?
[17:53] Speaker 3: Did you have tumultuous romances and like depression and quirks
[17:57] Speaker 3: but not quirky? Like did you smoked cigarettes and love
[18:01] Speaker 3: Spanish wine? And we're like red wafers.
[18:04] Speaker 2: Here you're in here the subway from where you.
[18:06] Speaker 3: Were, Yes, you're in. This was taking the art world
[18:09] Speaker 3: by storm. It was new, it was now.
[18:12] Speaker 4: Yes, and it really inherited a lot of energy, and
[18:15] Speaker 4: all of a sudden became the cresting moment of all
[18:18] Speaker 4: that energy. And then there was okay, so saying I'll
[18:21] Speaker 4: capitalize all this.
[18:22] Speaker 3: Still pushing the old masters.
[18:24] Speaker 2: European, Oh did not adopt you.
[18:27] Speaker 3: Nothing wrong with those, But a business has to go
[18:29] Speaker 3: where the market takes. Of course, the market was taking
[18:32] Speaker 3: Noedler to the Lower east Side and some cool spots.
[18:35] Speaker 3: So the gallery they start gradually adapting to this changing market.
[18:39] Speaker 3: All let's take a break here. When we come back,
[18:41] Speaker 3: we'll see what happens when change does actually come to
[18:45] Speaker 3: the gallery. Zaren Elizabeth Zaren Node Learn Company. They were
[19:11] Speaker 3: slowly changing with the time, catching up with one some
[19:15] Speaker 3: contemporary art, but still focusing on the old mess. And
[19:19] Speaker 3: they struggled. So by nineteen seventy they were almost bankrupt.
[19:24] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, by then most of their customers had to
[19:25] Speaker 2: be dead. Yeah.
[19:26] Speaker 3: Well, they had purchased the Morris Mansion, which is like
[19:30] Speaker 3: this huge townhouse on East seventieth Street, just like a
[19:33] Speaker 3: few doors down from the Frick Collection. So it's this
[19:36] Speaker 3: enormous Italian Renaissance style limestone mansion built in nineteen oh
[19:41] Speaker 3: nine for Dave Henon Morris and his bride Alice Vanderbilt
[19:45] Speaker 3: Shephard and so Morris, he was a lawyer. He was
[19:48] Speaker 3: also all about auto racing, and he was named ambassador
[19:52] Speaker 3: to Belgium by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in nineteen thirty three.
[19:55] Speaker 3: He went on to found Automobile Club of America. Really, yeah,
[19:59] Speaker 3: so he has this house. It's a triple A triple
[20:02] Speaker 3: A yeah, seventeen thousand.
[20:04] Speaker 2: Square foot Association of America.
[20:06] Speaker 3: Sure, I don't know whatever. It's auto car guys.
[20:08] Speaker 2: Okay, car guys. He's a big automobile.
[20:11] Speaker 3: The Aca ACA not triple A.
[20:13] Speaker 2: I don't know how I turn that into trel.
[20:16] Speaker 3: It could be everything to a triple everything is everything. Yeah,
[20:20] Speaker 3: seventeen thousand square foot house. Two roof decks each have
[20:24] Speaker 3: a view of Central Park, thirty rooms, two elevators, French
[20:29] Speaker 3: doors open onto stone balconies. There's like a dozen fireplaces.
[20:33] Speaker 2: I bet the family.
[20:35] Speaker 3: Had it until nineteen forty nine, and then it got
[20:38] Speaker 3: converted into offices in nineteen fifty two. Oh rough, Yeah,
[20:42] Speaker 3: and then know.
[20:42] Speaker 2: They're lawyer's offices.
[20:44] Speaker 3: Yeah, No, they're bought the whole building in nineteen three.
[20:47] Speaker 3: So the gallery bought it for two and a half
[20:49] Speaker 3: million dollars. It's sold in twenty fourteen for fifty point
[20:53] Speaker 3: twenty five million dollars.
[20:55] Speaker 2: Quite the appreciation.
[20:56] Speaker 3: Guys. It's not on the market now, but it is
[20:59] Speaker 3: on Zillow and there's zestiment is only forty million?
[21:03] Speaker 2: Oh it fell, yeah, Mike, some renovation raiders foundations crackinge
[21:08] Speaker 2: I guess.
[21:09] Speaker 3: So night nineteen seventy one is that water damage industrialist
[21:14] Speaker 3: Armond Hammer. Yeah, bought Node Learn Company for two and
[21:18] Speaker 3: a half mil It basically paid for the townhouse. Arm
[21:21] Speaker 3: and Hammer, not arm and hammer like the baking soda later. Yeah.
[21:26] Speaker 3: That product was actually in use for thirty one years
[21:29] Speaker 3: before he was born. Yeah, and then he did eventually
[21:32] Speaker 3: buy the brand.
[21:33] Speaker 2: Everybody, Okay, here you go. Yeah, christ it was.
[21:36] Speaker 3: Actually named after the arm and hammer symbol of the
[21:40] Speaker 3: Socialist Labor Party of America. That's not because his dad
[21:44] Speaker 3: was a Russian born communist activist.
[21:46] Speaker 2: Good for him.
[21:46] Speaker 3: So there's a whole other story there about his dad
[21:49] Speaker 3: getting busted for his politics and smuggling diamonds and stuff
[21:52] Speaker 3: to support the Bolsheviks back home. Yes, armand went to
[21:56] Speaker 3: medical school, but he never really practiced. And then he
[21:58] Speaker 3: went to the Soviet Union a lot, and he was
[22:00] Speaker 3: on FBI Director Hoover's watch. So he made his fortune
[22:05] Speaker 3: in pharmaceuticals and whiskey live in large.
[22:08] Speaker 2: The dad did no arm He was almost smuggling.
[22:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, But then he was put in charge of then
[22:15] Speaker 3: failing Occidental Petroleum in nineteen fifty six, Oh right, and
[22:18] Speaker 3: he turned him around. He was CEO and chairman for
[22:21] Speaker 3: thirty three years and it became one of the largest
[22:24] Speaker 3: companies in the US. The press used to call him
[22:27] Speaker 3: Lenin's chosen capitalist. So his great grandson is that actor
[22:32] Speaker 3: who's been accused of cannibalism, Army Hammer.
[22:35] Speaker 2: No, yeah himself. That's fun.
[22:37] Speaker 3: So Hammer's business interests around the world and his quote
[22:40] Speaker 3: citizen diplomacy helped him cultivate this wide network of friends
[22:45] Speaker 3: and associates. He was an art collector, he had all
[22:48] Speaker 3: these ties in the art world. So he buys the
[22:51] Speaker 3: gallery under his ownership. They continue to operate as this
[22:55] Speaker 3: prestigious dealership after he died, ownership remained connected to the
[23:00] Speaker 3: Hammer family and the gallery went into like the late
[23:04] Speaker 3: twentieth century with its historical reputation intact totally, and that's
[23:08] Speaker 3: thanks in very large part to its director at the time,
[23:12] Speaker 3: Lawrence Rubin. He was the one who shifted the business's
[23:16] Speaker 3: focus to more contemporary stuff. He filled the walls with
[23:19] Speaker 3: like Debicorn, Frank Stella, Sean Scully. And one of the
[23:24] Speaker 3: people that he hired that Lawrence Ruben hired was Anne Friedman.
[23:28] Speaker 3: Oh okay, so in nineteen seventy seven, she was a
[23:31] Speaker 3: receptionist that Ruben poached from another gallery. She was twenty
[23:34] Speaker 3: nine years old. But she comes in and she's just
[23:37] Speaker 3: like making her way up the ranks in the gallery.
[23:40] Speaker 2: And I'm sure.
[23:42] Speaker 3: She's got a great eye. She knows how to work
[23:45] Speaker 3: with people. She hustled, So over the next two decades
[23:49] Speaker 3: she goes steadily up through the organization. By the nineties
[23:53] Speaker 3: she'd become their most visible contemporary representative and its president,
[23:57] Speaker 3: and then in ninety four she gets named director of
[24:00] Speaker 3: Fildering Company. So she was born in Scarsdale, New York,
[24:04] Speaker 3: grew up there. She studied art. She had a Bachelor
[24:07] Speaker 3: of Fine Arts degree from Washington University in Saint Louis.
[24:11] Speaker 3: She trained as a painter, so she had this like
[24:13] Speaker 3: first hand familiarity with the process, the materials. Yeah. So
[24:18] Speaker 3: during this Reuben Friedman era Knoedler just like really took
[24:23] Speaker 3: on more and more post war and contemporary art really
[24:26] Speaker 3: got away from the old masters and they aligned themselves
[24:30] Speaker 3: with this growing financial and cultural value of abstract expressionism.
[24:35] Speaker 3: So Friedman, she's got great relationships with collectors, estates, artists.
[24:40] Speaker 3: She becomes this like confident, persuasive dealer and she can
[24:45] Speaker 3: place major works like she is just it like.
[24:47] Speaker 4: A Houston museum calls on, They're like, I've got the
[24:50] Speaker 4: perfect for you.
[24:51] Speaker 3: Yes, And she's got a rolodex. It's like a who's
[24:53] Speaker 3: who the movers and shakers at the time. David Geffen,
[24:57] Speaker 3: the Tobman family. You remember the Tabman Fami. I did
[25:01] Speaker 3: an episode about the guy. He was the real estate
[25:04] Speaker 3: mall developer, guy who helped create Irvine, California, bought the
[25:08] Speaker 3: A and W brand, collected a ton of art, He
[25:10] Speaker 3: bought Southey's, did the price fixing with Christie's. I told
[25:14] Speaker 3: his story back in twenty twenty three. I was just
[25:16] Speaker 3: a young girl then and not the wasted old crone
[25:20] Speaker 3: you see before you today. Anyway, Freedman was close to
[25:24] Speaker 3: the Tobmans, plugged into the art world, especially on the
[25:28] Speaker 3: I want to buy it side.
[25:29] Speaker 2: Gotcha, that's the fun side.
[25:31] Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, so in the early night.
[25:33] Speaker 2: I need to sell this, where the family's fighting.
[25:36] Speaker 3: Fuck, oh god. So in the early nineties nineteen nineties,
[25:40] Speaker 3: Glafira Rosalis Lafira Rosales, I love that she starts poking
[25:46] Speaker 3: around the gallery. She's from Long Island. She's got like
[25:50] Speaker 3: a limited standing in the elite art world, basically no
[25:54] Speaker 3: no standing. But she brought paintings to Knoedler that were
[26:00] Speaker 3: described as previously unknown works by well known abstract expressionist masters.
[26:05] Speaker 2: Counterfeits.
[26:06] Speaker 3: Yeah, so she's like, all this art comes from a
[26:08] Speaker 3: private collection and the owner wants to remain anonymous.
[26:12] Speaker 2: Naturally, yes, no questions.
[26:14] Speaker 3: That's why there's no exhibition history, there's no documentation, great.
[26:19] Speaker 2: Taste the dining room.
[26:23] Speaker 3: Rosales is like all be the intermediary between the collector
[26:27] Speaker 3: and the gallery. The paintings were like stylistically convincing, visually
[26:33] Speaker 3: consistent with the artists to which they were attributed, but
[26:36] Speaker 3: they were fakes. Yeah, they were in fact produced by
[26:41] Speaker 3: Pei shen Chien, Chinese born artist living in Queens so
[26:45] Speaker 3: Chien had Chien was like part of the avant garde
[26:50] Speaker 3: art circles in Shanghai in the seventies and then moved
[26:53] Speaker 3: to the US by the nineties. He was painting works
[26:56] Speaker 3: in the style of like Rothco Pollock, Dakooning Newman.
[27:00] Speaker 2: That's crazy, right.
[27:01] Speaker 3: So Rosales would pay him like these little amounts of
[27:04] Speaker 3: money per painting, and then she'd turn around. They'd go
[27:07] Speaker 3: from millions at Noedler Freeman bit Friedman was like, yeah,
[27:13] Speaker 3: these are the sills, right. She starts selling the paintings
[27:16] Speaker 3: to collectors.
[27:17] Speaker 4: With this jank proto. She's now lending hers to actually
[27:21] Speaker 4: give it, okay, So she's.
[27:23] Speaker 3: Going by this like, well, it's a private collection, and
[27:26] Speaker 3: then we have such a great reputation, so she doesn't
[27:29] Speaker 3: have complete documentary provenance. But it's just like trust me.
[27:33] Speaker 2: Like single maybe double honors, it's right.
[27:35] Speaker 3: Well, I mean a lot of it was like, oh
[27:37] Speaker 3: he got it directly from the artist and it never Yeah.
[27:42] Speaker 3: So in two thousand and three, a collector bought a
[27:45] Speaker 3: painting attributed to Jackson Pollock for like two million dollars
[27:50] Speaker 3: and then the buyer goes to get it authenticated. The
[27:52] Speaker 3: International Foundation for Art Research declined to endorse the work,
[27:57] Speaker 3: in part because Jackson Pollock was misspelled. What oops?
[28:03] Speaker 4: Wait, refund all this time getting all the like in
[28:07] Speaker 4: this case drip work right, and you don't take time
[28:10] Speaker 4: to look at how he spells his The.
[28:12] Speaker 3: Painting was returned and the guy got a refund. So
[28:14] Speaker 3: despite this warning, signedler continues to sell similar works attributed
[28:20] Speaker 3: to other abstract expressionists.
[28:23] Speaker 4: I mean just another image that you see, like I
[28:25] Speaker 4: need to image kept it real quick, I guess, I
[28:28] Speaker 4: mean it shouldn't be a spelling, that should literally be
[28:30] Speaker 4: an image.
[28:31] Speaker 3: So the gallery doesn't disclose this authentication failure Over the
[28:36] Speaker 3: following years, dozens of paintings get sold, prices climbing as
[28:40] Speaker 3: like confidence in this collection starts to solidify. Rosales still
[28:45] Speaker 3: acts as the conduit. Friedman still the primary figure at
[28:49] Speaker 3: Knoedler presenting the works to clients. Lab tests when they
[28:53] Speaker 3: were done were really limited and they didn't resolve any
[28:56] Speaker 3: fundamental questions of proven.
[28:58] Speaker 2: Because it's pretty easy get those material. We're only talking to.
[29:01] Speaker 3: Four exactly exactly, zaren closure Y. Yeah, I want you
[29:06] Speaker 3: to picture it. Yes, it's November two thousand and four,
[29:14] Speaker 3: and you are the executive assistant of Dominico de Sole.
[29:18] Speaker 3: You're standing outside of nineteen East seventieth Street, the offices
[29:22] Speaker 3: of Noedlearing Company. It's a leafy, little one way side
[29:25] Speaker 3: street off of bustling Madison Avenue. It's quiet and elegant.
[29:30] Speaker 3: You drove past it the Frick Collection, and just beyond
[29:33] Speaker 3: it on the left is number nineteen. You stand beneath
[29:36] Speaker 3: a large blue canopy that reads node lyric, waiting for
[29:39] Speaker 3: mister and missus de Sole to climb out of the
[29:42] Speaker 3: Chaufford Mercedes that whisked you some twenty blocks up Madison Avenue.
[29:46] Speaker 3: Here from the four seasons. Dominico and Eleanore exit the vehicle.
[29:51] Speaker 3: He's impossibly dapper in a dark gray suit and Gucci sunglasses.
[29:56] Speaker 3: She's got on an incredibly chic lauro Piana silk shirt
[30:00] Speaker 3: dress in the palest shade of blush, a matching fabric
[30:03] Speaker 3: belt cinched at her waist. They float your way, chatting
[30:07] Speaker 3: quietly to each other in Italian. His wife often refers
[30:10] Speaker 3: to herself as Dominico's unpaid secretary, and oh, you laugh,
[30:15] Speaker 3: but you do most of the work, and oh you laugh. Dominico,
[30:19] Speaker 3: who's from Calabria, spends most of his time with his
[30:22] Speaker 3: wife at their home in hilton Head, South Carolina. That
[30:25] Speaker 3: means you spend most of your time in hilton Head,
[30:28] Speaker 3: South Carolina. The de Soles are nice people, a couple
[30:33] Speaker 3: of filthy, rich, fancy folks. And there are certainly perks
[30:36] Speaker 3: to your job, you see. Dominico was the CEO of
[30:39] Speaker 3: the Gucci group. The man knows fashion. He and his
[30:42] Speaker 3: wife are always outfitted in the most understated luxurious pieces.
[30:46] Speaker 3: Oh and he co founded a little label called tom
[30:49] Speaker 3: Ford International. You press the buzzer at the door and
[30:52] Speaker 3: hold your leather document case to your chest. It's starting
[30:55] Speaker 3: to get a little chilly. The wide oak door swings
[30:58] Speaker 3: open and a receptionist directs you down a long hallway
[31:01] Speaker 3: covered in impressively large pieces of modern art. You aren't
[31:05] Speaker 3: particularly savvy in this context, but to be honest, neither
[31:08] Speaker 3: are the De Soles. They have a lot of expensive art,
[31:11] Speaker 3: but they like what they like, and they don't know
[31:13] Speaker 3: a huge amount beyond that. You're led into a warm
[31:16] Speaker 3: office and greeted by a woman with the curly mop
[31:18] Speaker 3: of gray hair and no nonsense, frameless glasses. She's dressed
[31:22] Speaker 3: smart and looks smart. She smiles and asks you all
[31:25] Speaker 3: to sit. You take the club chair by the door,
[31:28] Speaker 3: and the De Soles sit in over stuffed chairs opposite
[31:31] Speaker 3: this woman in her desk and Friedman, she tells them
[31:34] Speaker 3: as she shakes their hands, you just nod at her.
[31:37] Speaker 3: From the back of the room, soft classical music plays
[31:39] Speaker 3: from a sound system down the hall. The De Soles
[31:42] Speaker 3: introduce themselves and tell Friedman they're looking for a painting
[31:45] Speaker 3: by the artist Sean Scully. They'd heard the gallery represented him.
[31:50] Speaker 3: The De Soles have a Scully in their house in
[31:52] Speaker 3: Hilton Head. It's four columns of bright stripes each column
[31:55] Speaker 3: with two colors, but all the columns are different. It
[31:58] Speaker 3: always reminds you of striped winter scarves lined up on
[32:01] Speaker 3: a bench or something. You like them, So to the
[32:03] Speaker 3: De Soles, Friedman tells them that she doesn't have any
[32:07] Speaker 3: Scullies in their current inventory, but would they be interested
[32:10] Speaker 3: in the Rothko. As a matter of fact, it's the
[32:12] Speaker 3: one right over there. She motions to the wall to
[32:15] Speaker 3: her right on it hangs a dour work. It has stripes, sure,
[32:19] Speaker 3: but they're muted and limital and depressed. This one seems
[32:23] Speaker 3: so depressed, you think. Friedman explains that it actually belongs
[32:27] Speaker 3: to a private Swiss collector, one who wants to remain anonymous.
[32:31] Speaker 3: It's a major piece, she says. It's only for those
[32:35] Speaker 3: with great taste and wealth. There's some back and forth,
[32:38] Speaker 3: and then a deal is struck. The De Soles buy
[32:40] Speaker 3: the painting from Knoedler for eight point three million dollars,
[32:44] Speaker 3: an eye watering amount. They've never paid anywhere near this
[32:48] Speaker 3: for such a thing. Dominico asks you to hand him
[32:51] Speaker 3: the leather document case. Friedman taps her computer screen to life.
[32:55] Speaker 3: She begins to enter in the invoice for the Rothco.
[32:58] Speaker 3: Dominico asks that the buyer bliss as Laura Dissole. That's
[33:02] Speaker 3: their eldest daughter. You know where this is going. We
[33:06] Speaker 3: want the painting to go to her when we die,
[33:09] Speaker 3: Dominico explains. His wife tells Friedman that they didn't want
[33:13] Speaker 3: the painting to wind up with their younger daughter Ricky.
[33:16] Speaker 3: They fight, he says, and I don't want to roll
[33:18] Speaker 3: over in my grave, she adds. Lovely, says Friedman as
[33:22] Speaker 3: she hits print and tells the couple the invoice will
[33:25] Speaker 3: be sent to their email as well. Dominico is already
[33:28] Speaker 3: on the phone with his banker, arranging the wire transfer
[33:30] Speaker 3: from the details on a fine sheet of card stock.
[33:33] Speaker 3: Friedman slid across the desk to him. Oh you laugh, Sarah.
[33:40] Speaker 4: Let's pause fighting a card across the table. When you
[33:43] Speaker 4: get eight million dollars in returns.
[33:45] Speaker 3: Let's go buy some art. And when we come back
[33:48] Speaker 3: about that, Rothko.
[33:49] Speaker 7: N think of my keys, Hilizabeth.
[34:12] Speaker 3: Did you buy any good art over the break?
[34:15] Speaker 2: I did.
[34:15] Speaker 4: I bought a It's kind of like a postcard, and
[34:19] Speaker 4: it was this seven year old had been working on
[34:22] Speaker 4: it for a little while, and it cost me about
[34:24] Speaker 4: a sleeve of oreos. So it was I think it
[34:27] Speaker 4: was going to be a really smart investment over time,
[34:29] Speaker 4: that seven year old makes it to actual like start him.
[34:32] Speaker 3: In the art.
[34:33] Speaker 2: I have one of their earliest works.
[34:34] Speaker 3: Nice, I'm pretty stoked.
[34:35] Speaker 2: How about you.
[34:36] Speaker 3: I made a couple of bids, did you on an
[34:38] Speaker 3: auction website for fine art people. It's there's an interesting
[34:43] Speaker 3: it's a collection that has never seen gallery displays. Why
[34:48] Speaker 3: are you laughing at me? It's a set. It's a collection.
[34:52] Speaker 3: There's five pieces and they're by Thomas Kincaid and they're
[34:58] Speaker 3: tasteful nudes.
[35:00] Speaker 2: Thomas dolphins involved.
[35:02] Speaker 3: They're explicit, like they're really offensive and explicit, but they're concaids.
[35:07] Speaker 2: That's amazing.
[35:09] Speaker 3: His DNA is in them. In twenty In two thousand
[35:13] Speaker 3: and nine, Yea Friedman resigned from Noedler. She got a
[35:17] Speaker 3: grand jury subpoena and things weren't looking good.
[35:19] Speaker 6: Ooh.
[35:20] Speaker 2: It wasn't like I'm going to go and travel.
[35:23] Speaker 3: This thing was snowball.
[35:24] Speaker 6: Yeah.
[35:25] Speaker 3: I bet Noedler closed in November of twenty eleven for
[35:30] Speaker 3: good to all those years and all those good memories
[35:34] Speaker 3: and the civil lawsuits that followed forced facts into the
[35:38] Speaker 3: open because they're like pleadings discovery fights public allegations by
[35:42] Speaker 3: the early twenty tens, federal investigators, basically the FBI and
[35:47] Speaker 3: the prosecutors of the Southern District of New York. They're
[35:50] Speaker 3: working the case as a fraud and money laundering investigator.
[35:54] Speaker 3: Naturally so, in the federal system, art forgery is typically
[35:58] Speaker 3: prosecuted not as like standalone art crime, but through like
[36:01] Speaker 3: financial statutes like wirefraud, conspiracy, money laundering, tax.
[36:05] Speaker 2: Effects completely especially wirefraud.
[36:08] Speaker 6: Yea.
[36:09] Speaker 3: In the criminal narrative that the Southern District of New
[36:11] Speaker 3: York put for remember Glafira Rosalies. She was there like
[36:16] Speaker 3: she was the cornerstone of this. She's this central intermediary.
[36:20] Speaker 3: She gave the galleries the paintings that she said were authentic.
[36:24] Speaker 3: She also participated in fabricating these provenance stories. On September sixteenth,
[36:29] Speaker 3: twenty thirteen, Southern District of New York announced that Rosales
[36:34] Speaker 3: had pleaded guilty in Manhattan Federal Court in connection with
[36:37] Speaker 3: what the prosecutors are now at this point describing as
[36:40] Speaker 3: an eighty million dollar fake art scheme. Oh my goodness,
[36:44] Speaker 3: eighty million.
[36:45] Speaker 4: And she didn't have the common sense to be in
[36:47] Speaker 4: the Cayman Islands or actually and the charges.
[36:50] Speaker 3: So she pleads guilty to wirefraud related conspiracy counts of
[36:55] Speaker 3: like money laundering, tax crimes. She agreed to forfeiture totally
[36:59] Speaker 3: thirty three point two million dollars, including a home that
[37:03] Speaker 3: she'd bought, and then she had to do restitution in
[37:06] Speaker 3: an amount not to exceed eighty one million. So she
[37:10] Speaker 3: gets sentenced to the time she'd already served, which is
[37:13] Speaker 3: eighty two days plus nine months of home detention three
[37:16] Speaker 3: years of supervised release.
[37:18] Speaker 2: So they gave her a Bracelet Center home. Yeah.
[37:20] Speaker 3: April twenty first, twenty fourteen, they announced charges against Jose
[37:23] Speaker 3: Carlos Bergatinios Diez Jesus On Hell Bergatinios Diez family, Pai
[37:32] Speaker 3: Shan Chien in connection with the art front skirts okay,
[37:35] Speaker 3: the master, So yeah, Chien was the creator of these figures.
[37:39] Speaker 2: She's a fake master.
[37:40] Speaker 3: The Bergatinios brothers.
[37:42] Speaker 4: By the way, did Chen selling of her own works? Like,
[37:45] Speaker 4: does she have with there any oh?
[37:46] Speaker 2: Was he?
[37:47] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[37:48] Speaker 2: Did he have any of his own works out there? Okay?
[37:50] Speaker 3: Curious? So the Burgatinos brothers and Rosales, they were the
[37:54] Speaker 3: ones who commissioned them, moved the pieces to market, helped
[37:58] Speaker 3: create the false provenas jose Carlos was what's her name Rosales'
[38:05] Speaker 3: is abusive x and the brother of Jesus. Yeah. She
[38:09] Speaker 3: part of the reason why she got her her sentence
[38:12] Speaker 3: reduced is she was like, my boyfriend was abusive and
[38:15] Speaker 3: he's the one who made me do this, which, like,
[38:17] Speaker 3: I don't know.
[38:17] Speaker 2: Do we believe it? The judge did, do you after reading?
[38:21] Speaker 3: I don't know enough?
[38:22] Speaker 4: Okay, I mean I'm not saying obviously, like I believe
[38:25] Speaker 4: people when they claim things. Yeah, no, especially in terms
[38:27] Speaker 4: of abuse, but in terms of the culpability part, it's
[38:31] Speaker 4: really what I'm asking. Yeah, do you think it was
[38:33] Speaker 4: like both of their ideas?
[38:34] Speaker 3: Oh, I think, I don't know. I don't know. According
[38:37] Speaker 3: to a press release, Jose Carlos was like, he's the
[38:40] Speaker 3: one who who kicked this off that he saw Chan
[38:43] Speaker 3: selling paintings on a street corner. He's the idea, He's
[38:47] Speaker 3: the one who commissioned them. Chian got charged for Wirefrog conspiracy,
[38:53] Speaker 3: a false statements charge because he lied to the FBI,
[38:56] Speaker 3: which we know say nothing but and he took off
[39:00] Speaker 3: and went back to China.
[39:02] Speaker 6: Good.
[39:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, and his story was always, look, I was just
[39:07] Speaker 3: making paintings. I had no idea they were selling them.
[39:14] Speaker 2: And then I know what's going on.
[39:16] Speaker 3: And no, yeah, he's a painter in China. Now good
[39:18] Speaker 3: for Yeah, you know who else you got?
[39:23] Speaker 2: You're the guy who did you know who else.
[39:25] Speaker 3: Wasn't in the country. The Bergatinos brothers smartin. They scurried
[39:30] Speaker 3: off to Spain and then they got arrested in Spain,
[39:33] Speaker 3: though sought extradition. A Spanish court approved the extradition of
[39:38] Speaker 3: Jesus on Hell, subject to like additional approvals and like
[39:42] Speaker 3: potential appeals, but a Spanish high court denied the extradition
[39:47] Speaker 3: request for Jose Carlos.
[39:49] Speaker 2: Heyesus was the abusive one.
[39:52] Speaker 3: The boyfriend. US was the brother. Jose's the boyfriend. They
[39:57] Speaker 3: didn't extradite him because of health concern and then they
[40:01] Speaker 3: also pointed at the possibility of Spanish jurisdiction given that
[40:05] Speaker 3: the money was flowing through Spain. So they're like, we'll
[40:08] Speaker 3: handle that. We want to bust down, Yeah, we want
[40:10] Speaker 3: a piece of this.
[40:10] Speaker 2: We have castles that are prisons. We want to do
[40:12] Speaker 2: this exactly.
[40:13] Speaker 3: But in twenty fifteen, the de Soles, they finally got
[40:18] Speaker 3: their time in the court.
[40:19] Speaker 2: I was wondering because I know they.
[40:21] Speaker 3: Got the years went by where they tried to do
[40:23] Speaker 3: these settlements and they they were all like, let's have
[40:27] Speaker 3: it out. I want a piece of Knoedler. They argued
[40:30] Speaker 3: that for fifteen years no there was a racketeering operation,
[40:34] Speaker 3: and so they wanted triple damages treble damages twenty five
[40:37] Speaker 3: mil under federal RICO laws. The Gallery Freedman, the Galleries
[40:43] Speaker 3: Holding Company, which was eight thirty one Holdings that was
[40:46] Speaker 3: owned by armand Hammer's grandson Michael. They're all defendants, Michael,
[40:51] Speaker 3: father of alleged cannibal actor and abuser Army Hammer.
[40:54] Speaker 2: I was just about it has to be pretty close
[40:57] Speaker 2: to these the grand allegedly.
[40:58] Speaker 3: Yeah. So the trial started in Manhattan in January of
[41:02] Speaker 3: twenty sixteen. It went on for three weeks. So behind
[41:06] Speaker 3: a screen in the courtroom was the fake Rothko and
[41:09] Speaker 3: sometimes they'd wheel it out for the jury to look
[41:12] Speaker 3: at it, and then it would go back behind this screen.
[41:14] Speaker 2: Could only jury see it, like no one else. Everyone
[41:17] Speaker 2: gets your eyes.
[41:18] Speaker 3: This is the same one that they had in their
[41:21] Speaker 3: the Dey Soles had in their house all alarmed us
[41:25] Speaker 3: behind a glass case. For six years. Now now they
[41:31] Speaker 3: they know it's fake. They're just like roughly handling it,
[41:34] Speaker 3: like exactly. So Dominico first thought something was off when
[41:40] Speaker 3: he saw in the New York Times that another duped collector,
[41:44] Speaker 3: Pierre Lagrange, had filed a lawsuit against Knoedler. And so
[41:48] Speaker 3: then he goes into overdrive, like and getting justice had
[41:52] Speaker 3: been his passion ever since. He and his wife were
[41:56] Speaker 3: big personalities in court. They'd like pull faces and like
[41:59] Speaker 3: confers with the press during breaks. She would weep into
[42:02] Speaker 3: a tissue coast. Oh yeah, then there's Anne Friedman. She's
[42:07] Speaker 3: stone colled, no expression, no eye contact.
[42:11] Speaker 2: This.
[42:11] Speaker 3: Emily Ricebaum was the lawyer for the plaintiffs on their
[42:14] Speaker 3: team of three lawyers, and she gave the opening statement,
[42:17] Speaker 3: and she focused on what she called the six red
[42:20] Speaker 3: flags that formed the backbone of the case against Knoedler.
[42:25] Speaker 3: One Red flag number one. Friedman knew nothing of Rosales
[42:29] Speaker 3: before she came to Knoedler and had no reason to
[42:32] Speaker 3: trust her. Red Flag two. No one had ever seen
[42:37] Speaker 3: or heard of the works Rosales was bringing in, and
[42:40] Speaker 3: there was no documentation, receipts, sales records, photographs to corroborate
[42:45] Speaker 3: their existence.
[42:46] Speaker 4: That was the only red flag I really needed it
[42:47] Speaker 4: was like, wait a minute, claim about these books.
[42:50] Speaker 3: Red Flag three. Rosales offered the works that quote bargain
[42:54] Speaker 3: basement prices, Andnedler made massive profits in selling them, profits
[43:00] Speaker 3: Ice Bomb described as quote not normal. Red Flag four.
[43:05] Speaker 3: Noedler paid Rosales for the works partly by wire transfer,
[43:08] Speaker 3: partly by check, and partly with cash payment, usually just
[43:13] Speaker 3: under ten thousand dollars that Federal bank reporting requirement. Red
[43:18] Speaker 3: Flag five, Noedler and Freeman not only didn't know Rosales's
[43:23] Speaker 3: source for the works, they quote actually made up the
[43:27] Speaker 3: story about where the works came from themselves.
[43:31] Speaker 2: And then read ail and then I'm going back and
[43:33] Speaker 2: forth on detail.
[43:35] Speaker 3: Who knows the red flag six Beginning in nineteen ninety four,
[43:38] Speaker 3: when the gallery sold the first Rosales work, various experts
[43:42] Speaker 3: voiced suspicions about the collection, so.
[43:46] Speaker 2: We have no evidence and keep it rolling.
[43:49] Speaker 3: The question is, were Friedman and others at Noedler in
[43:52] Speaker 3: on the con And it's really hard to believe they weren't.
[43:55] Speaker 2: I'd say almost impossible to believe they were.
[43:57] Speaker 3: According to Art News Quote, Dominico testified that Friedman told
[44:01] Speaker 3: him and his wife that eleven experts had authenticated the
[44:05] Speaker 3: roth Co he was careful to use the word authenticate,
[44:08] Speaker 3: the defense's argument that no one person authenticates a work
[44:12] Speaker 3: and that even the combined opinions of many experts is
[44:16] Speaker 3: not binding. The De Solis lawyer argued that Friedman presented
[44:20] Speaker 3: the works as authentic without disclosing any of the questions
[44:23] Speaker 3: surrounding where it came from. So where they came from?
[44:28] Speaker 3: If you'll recall, was this anonymous Swiss apparently sugar bearon
[44:33] Speaker 3: is what they were telling.
[44:34] Speaker 2: Swiss sugar bears had homes.
[44:36] Speaker 3: In Switzerland and Mexico, Swiss sugar bear, sugar Swiss miss,
[44:41] Speaker 3: swissess running that Swiss miss. It was all very hush hush.
[44:48] Speaker 3: And then where did he get the paper? Well, straight
[44:51] Speaker 3: from the artist's studios, of course, that's why there are
[44:56] Speaker 3: no gallery records, and they're not collection books. And then
[45:00] Speaker 3: and he died. His son asked Rosales to sell some
[45:03] Speaker 3: of the works, and she's like, okay, sure, totally. How
[45:08] Speaker 3: do we know each other? I don't know.
[45:10] Speaker 2: I park in Greece.
[45:15] Speaker 3: According to court transcripts, the folks Atnedler referred to the
[45:18] Speaker 3: anonymous collector as quote mister X, and Friedman also referred
[45:23] Speaker 3: to him as quote secret Santa.
[45:28] Speaker 5: And.
[45:30] Speaker 3: Time goes on, the gallery's story of the painting's provenance
[45:35] Speaker 3: starts to change a little. So first they said that
[45:38] Speaker 3: Alfonso Asario, who was a friend of Jackson Pollock and
[45:42] Speaker 3: his contemporaries, facilitated all of mister X's purchases.
[45:46] Speaker 2: But there's originally he was like he knew who was.
[45:49] Speaker 3: Who, right, but there's no evidence of that. Yes, and Osario,
[45:54] Speaker 3: who was really well known person in that world, was
[45:56] Speaker 3: also well known for keeping meticulous records.
[46:00] Speaker 2: Mistake in your story, Yes, to what he's known for.
[46:03] Speaker 3: But like when Friedman was trying to pass that Rothko
[46:06] Speaker 3: off to Dominico and his wife, she said that mister
[46:10] Speaker 3: X had been in a love affair with a guy
[46:12] Speaker 3: who was a former low level employee at two leading
[46:17] Speaker 3: New York galleries that showed the abstract expressionists in their
[46:20] Speaker 3: prime in the fifties, but that mister X was married
[46:23] Speaker 3: and had a family, so he wanted his name to
[46:25] Speaker 3: be kept secret.
[46:27] Speaker 2: Oh wow, they're going to hide it behind the man
[46:30] Speaker 2: in the closet.
[46:31] Speaker 3: Yes, exactly.
[46:32] Speaker 2: Okay. So also they're saying like these were gifts to
[46:34] Speaker 2: the young lover.
[46:35] Speaker 3: Well that yeah, that he he like I don't know.
[46:38] Speaker 2: Mister X came back and said, can I have all
[46:40] Speaker 2: my paintings?
[46:41] Speaker 3: Yeah, that he's I'm in this affair with him and
[46:43] Speaker 3: he's like getting me these paintings. He's just intro artists.
[46:47] Speaker 3: Perhaps so Resalez is giving these goofy stories. Can't confirm
[46:52] Speaker 3: any of them, of course not. But it didn't stop
[46:54] Speaker 3: them from putting those details into their own documentation, and
[46:58] Speaker 3: it didn't stop them from accept the new batches of
[47:01] Speaker 3: paintings that Rosales would bring every year, usually just like
[47:05] Speaker 3: rolled up in the backseat of her Mercedes. She'd drive
[47:08] Speaker 3: up and be like, here you go, toss him out frame.
[47:11] Speaker 4: These I got to go got checked to cash.
[47:14] Speaker 3: There was like fascinating testimony from this woman, Ruth Blankenshen.
[47:19] Speaker 3: She used to be the Knoedler accountant.
[47:22] Speaker 2: Oh she went.
[47:23] Speaker 3: She went on to become the CFO at eight thirty
[47:25] Speaker 3: one Holdings, that Hammer family outfit. So she had to
[47:29] Speaker 3: talk cash flow and finances and that's not something that
[47:32] Speaker 3: people get to see very often in the art world.
[47:35] Speaker 2: Or double entry accounting.
[47:36] Speaker 3: The exactly the press in the art world were riveted.
[47:44] Speaker 3: Had to bleed it out right. So she lets him know.
[47:46] Speaker 3: Friedman made three hundred thousand dollars a year, and she
[47:50] Speaker 3: made about ten point four million dollars off the sale
[47:53] Speaker 3: of all the Rosales works.
[47:55] Speaker 2: She told she worked out commissioned she works.
[47:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, with a three hundred hammer. Eight thirty one's owner.
[48:03] Speaker 3: He had a salary of four hundred thousand dollars a year,
[48:06] Speaker 3: plus a twenty percent share of the combined profits of
[48:10] Speaker 3: eight thirty one subsidiaries, and that includes Noller and then
[48:13] Speaker 3: Hammer's own gallery. Plus there was a company American Express
[48:17] Speaker 3: card that the company he didn't pay it, so between
[48:20] Speaker 3: two thousand and one and twenty twelve, Hammer ran up
[48:24] Speaker 3: one point two million dollars on the card, and then
[48:28] Speaker 3: that includes a ten thousand dollars trip to Paris with
[48:31] Speaker 3: his wife.
[48:32] Speaker 2: Are they paying like the minimum each month? Like, I
[48:34] Speaker 2: don't know how this works.
[48:35] Speaker 3: No, they just paid it off, but he's not paying it.
[48:37] Speaker 3: The company's paying it.
[48:38] Speaker 4: Companies pays part of its budget. So whatever he runs
[48:41] Speaker 4: that they pay it off it off. So this is
[48:42] Speaker 4: a basically credit line.
[48:43] Speaker 3: Yes, OK, a perk. They bought him cars eight thirty
[48:49] Speaker 3: one buck cars for Hammer, stuff like a five hundred
[48:52] Speaker 3: and twenty three thousand dollars Mercedes and a four hundred
[48:56] Speaker 3: and eighty two thousand dollars Rolls Royce. He turned around
[49:00] Speaker 3: and sold the Rolls Royce in two thousand and eight
[49:03] Speaker 3: for four hundred and fifty two thousand, and pocketed all
[49:06] Speaker 3: the cash from the sale, and.
[49:07] Speaker 2: He telled the buyer this is a Bentley.
[49:09] Speaker 3: Yeah. And then he went as far as to list
[49:13] Speaker 3: the cash from that sale as salary on this W two.
[49:17] Speaker 4: Because you know it was you know, it's a gift
[49:20] Speaker 4: to gifts a salary. It's oh, it's all like ins
[49:22] Speaker 4: and out things you wouldn't understand, hi fi.
[49:24] Speaker 3: According to art News quote, the point of exposing all
[49:28] Speaker 3: this was to prove that Hammer was reaping benefits directly
[49:31] Speaker 3: from Knoedler's profits on the rosales works and using that
[49:35] Speaker 3: money to support a lavish lifestyle.
[49:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, he was dipping into the sugar baron pums too.
[49:39] Speaker 3: Yeah. Are you aware of any board meetings that took
[49:41] Speaker 3: place in Paris, kraw asked, regarding Hammer's trip. There none
[49:45] Speaker 3: that I'm aware of, Blankensheen said. So the trial's cooking along,
[49:50] Speaker 3: and then both Hammer and Friedman were set to be
[49:53] Speaker 3: called to the stand. This is gonna get good. Hell yeah,
[49:56] Speaker 3: everyone's just like electric with anticipation fighting, but then nothing.
[50:01] Speaker 3: Court breaks for lunch and then they're like, well, there's
[50:04] Speaker 3: been this unexpected delay and things will start back up
[50:07] Speaker 3: again tomorrow. Then tomorrow comes, jury's not there. The parties
[50:11] Speaker 3: had settled courts. Yeah, of course, they're apparently all very
[50:16] Speaker 3: happy and so Luke Nicas was Friedman's attorney. He talked
[50:21] Speaker 3: to Art News after the settlement and he was like, I,
[50:24] Speaker 3: you know, those six red flags are garbage. The plaintiff
[50:29] Speaker 3: brought a bogus case, but we still settled. And he
[50:33] Speaker 3: said there were why do you settle? Well, there were
[50:35] Speaker 3: too many other pending cases and other pending settlements on
[50:38] Speaker 3: the table work to get to it went all the
[50:42] Speaker 3: way through with the trial, it would have tanked all
[50:44] Speaker 3: the other settlements and they all would have won to
[50:46] Speaker 3: go to trial. So M. H. Miller, deputy editor of
[50:51] Speaker 3: Art News, closed out the piece on this with this quote.
[50:55] Speaker 3: I was surprised to see several of the Rosales fakes
[50:58] Speaker 3: hanging in Nicos's office, including the very first work that
[51:02] Speaker 3: Rosales showed to Friedman, a rothco and the pollock with
[51:05] Speaker 3: the misspelled signature beneath the pollock was a framed New
[51:09] Speaker 3: York Times article with the headline note to forgers, don't
[51:12] Speaker 3: forget the spell check. I'm just interested in the picture itself.
[51:16] Speaker 3: Nica said, So, Sarah, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
[51:23] Speaker 4: The thing about lying, and I've been told this since
[51:26] Speaker 4: I was a kid, is that the truth has less details. Yeah,
[51:30] Speaker 4: so when you get into like, oh, I've got a
[51:32] Speaker 4: Swiss sugar baron, it's gotta pretty clear to people. Because
[51:37] Speaker 4: we're getting into hanky territory. It's starting to be a
[51:39] Speaker 4: bit suss. Things are too specific. Monshour Swiss, Miss I
[51:44] Speaker 4: don't know about him.
[51:46] Speaker 2: So that's mine. What about you, Elizabeth?
[51:48] Speaker 3: I you know, I just this. I can't feel bad
[51:52] Speaker 3: for anybody really. I mean, like the Solace is, like
[51:56] Speaker 3: you know, I know they wanted this wonderful piece of art,
[51:59] Speaker 3: but like, you know, if that's your big complaint is
[52:03] Speaker 3: I've spent eight point three billion, and I like, you know,
[52:08] Speaker 3: no one's everyone's whole at the end of the day.
[52:11] Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, only feelings got hurt and lawyers and accountants
[52:15] Speaker 4: got paid.
[52:16] Speaker 3: And so I mean, there's no in my opinion, there's
[52:18] Speaker 3: no way that the gallery and freedmen were unaware they knew, but.
[52:25] Speaker 2: There they are the people who give the art world
[52:27] Speaker 2: the reputation it has.
[52:28] Speaker 3: Yeah, but the ones who paid the biggest price are
[52:30] Speaker 3: the low level ones who did the actual street work,
[52:32] Speaker 3: which typical. But yeah.
[52:34] Speaker 4: And the fact that they didn't have to publicly confess
[52:37] Speaker 4: to their crimes on the witness stand. Instead they settled
[52:41] Speaker 4: seems interesting because it's like you could if you knew,
[52:43] Speaker 4: If you knew settling was an option, you could have
[52:45] Speaker 4: done that so long ago before you dragged it this
[52:47] Speaker 4: bar and ruined everything because they're like, no, we want
[52:49] Speaker 4: to ruin everything, and then we're gonna get out of it.
[52:52] Speaker 4: Just the part where we have to sit on the
[52:53] Speaker 4: hot seat.
[52:54] Speaker 3: Yep, there it is. Anyway, cats, fat cats. You know
[52:58] Speaker 3: what I would like is a talk back.
[53:00] Speaker 6: He yeah, Oh my god, I let.
[53:14] Speaker 5: Hello Zarah, Elizabeth and Producer D to my four legged
[53:18] Speaker 5: intern friends. I might need your help because my new
[53:21] Speaker 5: mission in life is to bring Kaylutes back. I think
[53:24] Speaker 5: it's so unfair, Elizabeth that the world doesn't get to
[53:27] Speaker 5: see how high you can fly.
[53:29] Speaker 3: Oh my god, thank you, my precious angel. Wait, that's
[53:35] Speaker 3: so good, because you know what that just shows you careful.
[53:40] Speaker 2: It's a really beautiful thing, your health, your wealth, right,
[53:42] Speaker 2: and if.
[53:42] Speaker 3: You can figure out a way to do it, I'll
[53:44] Speaker 3: totally split some with you.
[53:47] Speaker 2: And you know we'll be benefit from you being.
[53:48] Speaker 3: That high, right, right, we really would, because I mean
[53:51] Speaker 3: I'm just barely hanging on.
[53:53] Speaker 6: Yeah.
[53:54] Speaker 3: If I had Kaylid's amazingow.
[53:59] Speaker 2: In every direction coming out of a cloud, I would.
[54:01] Speaker 3: They would have to write, like they'd write medical papers
[54:04] Speaker 3: about how is this incredible feat of human existence? Well, coiluds, Yeah,
[54:10] Speaker 3: so thank you for thank you for supporting me in
[54:15] Speaker 3: my desire to become a drug addict. I appreciate that.
[54:21] Speaker 3: I just want to say I'm about ludes. That's it
[54:24] Speaker 3: for today. You can find us online at ridiculous Crime
[54:27] Speaker 3: dot com. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Blue
[54:30] Speaker 3: Sky and Instagram. We're on YouTube at ridiculous Crime pod,
[54:35] Speaker 3: email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Most importantly, as
[54:38] Speaker 3: I always say, leave us a talkback on the iHeart
[54:41] Speaker 3: app reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton
[54:49] Speaker 3: and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by clapbergirl Air Dave Kusten,
[54:54] Speaker 3: starring Emilie Rutger as Judith. Research is by Jerks and
[54:58] Speaker 3: perlic expert Risa Brown and Girkin Pohl Dunk authenticator Jabari Davis.
[55:04] Speaker 3: The theme song is by Bearer of Seven Red Flags
[55:07] Speaker 3: Thomas Lee and Missing Bergatinios Diaz brother Travis Dutton. Post
[55:11] Speaker 3: wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and
[55:14] Speaker 3: makeup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive producers are Art
[55:18] Speaker 3: World accountant Ben Boleen and hipster jazz cat painter Guy
[55:22] Speaker 3: No Brown. We dis Crime, Say It one more Time
[55:33] Speaker 3: Geequus Crime.
[55:35] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts.
[55:39] Speaker 1: To my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
[55:42] Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,

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