Leslie Roberts, the proprietor and founding father of Miami Fantastic Artwork Gallery in Florida, has been indicted for allegedly promoting solid Andy Warhols. On 9 April, brokers from the FBI’s Artwork Crime Workforce entered Roberts’s gallery in Miami, eradicating artwork and hauling it away in cardboard containers, overlaying the home windows to forestall the general public from peeking in.
Roberts and an affiliate, Carlos Miguel Rodriguez Melendez, have been arrested and charged. Their arraignment is scheduled for 21 April. They every resist 20 years in jail for wire fraud conspiracy; Roberts might get an extra ten years for cash laundering.
Since 1997, Miami Fantastic Artwork Gallery has introduced an array of recent and modern artwork to the town—together with works by blue-chip stars like Pablo Picasso, Jeff Koons and KAWS. “Certainly one of my proudest moments was buying uncommon artwork from the Andy Warhol Basis,” Roberts advised Artnet final 12 months. “This milestone underscored our gallery’s dedication to curating distinctive works.” This relationship with the Pop artist’s basis seems to have been a part of his alleged fraud.
In August 2024, a household of Florida artwork collectors—Matthew, Judy and Richard Perlman—filed a criticism accusing Roberts of an elaborate scheme to promote them counterfeit Warhols. The Perlmans realised they’d been tricked into spending $6m on the fakes after a Christie’s appraisal discovered that the works have been forgeries.
The Perlmans confronted Roberts about this, and so they allege that he despatched two specialists from Phillips to conduct a separate appraisal. These “specialists” confirmed all of the works have been originals; unconvinced, the household contacted Phillips instantly, solely to be taught that the 2 appraisers weren’t firm staff and had offered pretend enterprise playing cards. (Rodriguez Melendez, Roberts’s affiliate, seems to have posed as one of many Phillips specialists.)
“Roberts betrayed the Perlmans’ belief and went to nice lengths to cowl up his fraud,” Luke Nikas, the Perlman household’s lawyer, tells The Artwork Newspaper. “He’s precisely the sort of artwork vendor who must be held accountable—for the sake of the Perlmans, his potential future victims and the artwork market itself.” (Roberts’s lawyer, Jonathan Marc Davidoff, declined to remark.)
In response to the indictment, Roberts developed advanced schemes to persuade patrons that the works he was promoting have been reliable Warhols, utilizing pretend stamps and offering fraudulent invoices to his purchasers. He additionally allegedly solid authentication paperwork, claiming they’d been supplied by the Andy Warhol Artwork Authentication Board. (The Warhol Basis dissolved its authentication board in 2011.) Roberts’s money-laundering accusation stems from transferring greater than $200,000 in complete from Miami Fantastic Artwork Gallery to his private checking account.
That is removed from Roberts’s first run-in with the regulation. He has a historical past of lawsuits filed towards him and accusations of fraud. He has even hung out behind bars—for stealing tens of millions of {dollars} from his great-uncle within the Nineteen Eighties. The Miami New Occasions not too long ago reported on the various deceptions the artwork vendor has been concerned in. Amongst them, in 2010 he was discovered to have offered counterfeit works attributed to the Brazilian artist Romero Britto, each in his gallery and on eBay. In 2015, Roberts confronted prison costs for operating a Peter Max forgery ring out of Max within the Grove, his gallery in Miami’s Coconut Grove neighbourhood. In response to courtroom paperwork, Roberts’s two kids created the “Max” works that he later offered to purchasers.
In an interview final month with the native information outlet Coconut Grove Highlight, Roberts mentioned he had put his previous behind him and was “working arduous” to rebuild his status. He advised the paper that the Perlmans have been utilizing him as a scapegoat for offers that have been out of his management. “What is going on on just isn’t honest,” Roberts mentioned. “They’re digging up my previous and utilizing it towards me.”
