Lawsuit Alleges Warhol Forgery Scheme Spanning Florida, Peru, and Philadelphia

Duped into buying more than $6.7 million worth of fake Andy Warhol paintings and prints, real estate investor Richard Perlman and his family have launched a multinational lawsuit against the players they say are complicit in the alleged scam.

Filed on September 9 in a Miami state court and first reported by the Wall Street Journal, the lawsuit accuses roughly half a dozen individuals and companies across Florida, Philadelphia, and Peru of acting as “suppliers, fake authenticators and distributors” within an elaborate forgery network. The lawsuit traces the alleged journey of the illicit works to Miami—from the painter employed in Peru, through their smuggling into the US, to the construction of a false provenance, including fabricated documents and a label for the canvas.

According to the lawsuit, the forgery was uncovered in 2023, when the Perlman family invited experts from Christie’s to assess a collection that included portraits they believed were by Warhol. The paintings depicted Liza Minnelli, Debbie Harry, and Queen Elizabeth II, among other famous faces. Christie’s instead raised suspicions about their authenticity, prompting Perlman to investigate.

The dealer at the center of Perlman’s earlier lawsuit, Leslie Roberts, sold the works from his Coconut Grove storefront. Perlman sued Roberts in 2024, a case that, according to the Journal, was resolved in January under undisclosed terms. Roberts has also admitted to wire fraud charges stemming from the alleged Warhol scheme. He pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced September 24. Roberts closed his gallery after the indictment and maintained that he believed the Warhols were authentic at the time. “I invested $3.3 million of my own money,” he said, explaining that he pleaded guilty because it was “the favorable way to get out of trouble.”

Perlman’s suit appears aimed at holding accountable every player who, as the complaint puts it, “created a pipeline of fraudulent works flowing across state and international lines.” The suit also names Philadelphia art dealer Nathan Isen. FBI agents raided his gallery, Dane Fine Art, in July.

Isen pleaded guilty in 2015 to money laundering as part of a scheme in which he used art to allegedly launder drug proceeds. That same year, Philadelphia magazine published a report on Isen that detailed allegations that he had sold counterfeit artworks.

Isen has denied any involvement in the alleged Warhol forgery.

The lawsuit also accuses two men in Peru of painting a series of works purportedly signed by Warhol and arranging for the canvases to be shipped to Roberts’s gallery. The forms listed values as low as $30, which the suit describes as “absurdly low values for purported original Warhol paintings.” Other collaborators named in the suit include a Florida dealer whom Roberts says he met at Art Basel Miami Beach and a retired dentist linked to an LLC called WarholandFriends.

“The Perlmans want to hold accountable every individual and every company that defrauded them and perpetrated this scheme to defraud other victims,” Luke Nikas, the Perlmans’ lawyer, told the Journal.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leonardo da Vinci May Become the Face of Future Euro Banknotes

Image
Could Leonardo da Vinci, alongside imagery of visitors strolling through art exhibitions, become the face of future euro banknotes? In a first, Europeans can now help decide how they want to pay for their Belgian chocolate and French cheese: with bills printed in designs depicting either “European culture” or “Rivers and birds,” announced the European Central Bank (ECB) today. Not too shabby. The bank has revealed 10 shortlisted finalists of an international competition for the eurozone’s new banknote designs, and invited the public to share their two cents about it in a survey here , open until September 21, 2026. This is the first time the euro will get a full makeover since it was issued in 2002. Among the design proposals, the arts and culture category features figures such as opera star Maria Callas on the 5-euro bill, Ludwig van Beethoven on 10-euro notes, and Leonardo on the 100-euro bill. On the reverse side of the latter note, designe...
Read more

OMC, Nesian Mystik, Scribe, Brooke Fraser, Aradhna, Adeaze, Feature in 50 Iconic Aotearoa Music Moments  

Image
Nesian Mystik. Photo: Facebook The Official Music Charts turns 50 today. Produced by Recorded Music NZ, the Charts reflect the most popular singles and albums in Aotearoa each week. They are the only charts endorsed by the music industry and are compiled according to globally recognised guidelines. In celebration of the milestone anniversary, Recorded Music has identified 50 iconic Aotearoa music moments from the last five decades. The Charts’ 50-year history is rich with stories of pikitanga, or ascension – referring to those who demonstrate great potential and are climbing toward success.  Today is just the start of Charts celebrations during 2025 – Recorded Music will also be acknowledging a small number of New Zealand’s most successful artists as Aotearoa Charts Icons later in 2025. As well as 50 years of the Official Charts, 2025 marks 60 years of the Music Awards in Aotearoa, an anniversary which will be celebrated at the AMA event on Thursday 29 May, closing out Te Ma...
Read more

The Storied Collection of Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio’s Founder Heads to Auction at Sotheby’s Paris

Image
On April 10, Sotheby’s Paris will hold a sale dedicated to Niomar Moniz Sodré Bittencourt, a Brazilian businesswoman and journalist and the founder of Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM) in Rio de Janeiro. Bittencourt, who died in 2003, was a prodigious collector of mid-century Modernist masterpieces, including works by Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso, and Max Ernst, as well as leading Brazilian artists of the era including Almir Da Silva Mavignier and Franz Krajcberg. For those unfamiliar with Bittencourt, that may soon change. Later this year, according to Sotheby’s, a biography by author Ricardo Cota will be released. Titled A Mulher que Enfrentou o Brasil (The Woman Who Faced Brazil), the book will tell how Bittencourt both shaped Brazil’s modern art scene and courageously defied the Brazilian military dictatorship of the ’60s and ’70s. In the 1940s, while Brazil’s cultural establishment remained skeptical of modernism, Bittencourt founded the MAM with little funding and against stif...
Read more