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 Brian Walshe, 43, sold two forged Warhols to the owner of a Los
Angeles gallery for $80,000 in 2016, according to a criminal
complaint filed in federal court in Boston.
According to authorities, Walshe had the real paintings, which
he had stolen from a former classmate at Carnegie Mellon
University who is now living in South Korea.
Walshe, a resident of Lynn, Massachusetts, was charged with one
count of wire fraud. His court-appointed lawyer did not respond
to a request for comment.
According to the complaint, in 2016, the gallery owner found a
posting for the two Warhol paintings, which were from his
"Shadow" series, on eBay, where Walshe listed them for $100,000.
A posting on eBay stated that Walshe had "terribly over paid"
when he bought the paintings from an art dealer in 2007 for
$240,000 and was willing to sell them now to cover the costs of
renovating his house, the complaint said.
"Our loss is your gain," the posting said, according to court
papers.
After speaking with Walshe, the gallery owner agreed to buy the
paintings outside of eBay for $80,000 based on his understanding
that the paintings had stamps from the Andy Warhol Foundation
for the Visual Arts authenticating them, the complaint said.
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But the paintings, which the gallery owner's assistant flew to
Boston to pick up, did not have those stamps and did not look like
the art pictured on eBay, the complaint said.
After weeks of demands from the gallery owner, Walshe refunded him
$30,000 but made repeated excuses why he could not repay the rest,
the complaint said.
Authorities alleged that Walshe may have based the fakes on two
authentic paintings he had stolen.
Charging documents state that Walshe had previously offered to help
his ex-classmate sell some of his family's art, which included the
Warhol paintings.
Friends of the South Korean's were eventually were enlisted to track
Walshe down to demand he return the art, the complaint said.
But he only returned two Keith Haring prints and a Tang dynasty
porcelain statue, according to court papers. In 2011, Walshe sold
one Warhol piece through the auction house Christie's for $40,000,
the complaint said.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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