NY dealer of fake modernist paintiings avoids jail
Glafira Rosales, the art dealer who tricked the art world into believing that paintings that were created for her by an unknown artist, were actually works of Modernist painters, has avoided prison, and will service three years of supervised release and 90 days of home arrest. This ranks as one of the largest art frauds in modern times. Over five-years, Rosales made $80m in sales as a result of her deception. The fraud contributed to the demise of New York's oldest gallery, Knoedler & Company, which unwittingly sold fakes and was forced to cease trading after 170 years in business. Also see The frauds and Feuds That Defined the Art World in 2016. 
The Long Island woman who fooled the art world by pawning off paintings by an unknown artist from Queens as the work of Modernist masters was sentenced to time served on Tuesday, more than five years after her actions helped lead to $80 million in fraudulent sales and the demise of New York’s oldest gallery.

Between 1994 and 2009 prosecutors have said that the woman, Glafira Rosales, a little-known art dealer on Long Island, and her boyfriend came up with 60 pieces that they marketed as previously unknown works by artists including Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock. In fact, they had all been created by a Chinese immigrant who used a garage in Queens as his studio.

In her sentencing, the judge, Katherine Polk Failla of Federal District Court in Manhattan, cited defense arguments that Ms. Rosales had been intimidated and abused by her former boyfriend, who is also charged in the case and whom the defense described in court papers as the mastermind of the scheme. She also feared being separated from her daughter, according to the defense.

“Ms. Rosales, I’m not putting you back in jail,” Judge Failla said.

Ms. Rosales, 60, had served three months in jail. She will be subject to three years of supervised release including 90 days of home detention, the judge said. She will also pay restitution in an amount to be determined. Her boyfriend, Jose Carlos Bergantiños Diaz, was arrested in 2014 in Spain but his extradition has been blocked.