Art Forger Gets 3 Years, $1.45M Fine
ERIC IAN HORNAK SPOUTZ, a/k/a “Robert Chad Smith,” a/k/a “John Goodman,” a/k/a “James Sinclair,” was sentenced to 41 months in prison for selling forged artworks purportedly by renowned American artists like Willem De Kooning, Franz Kline, and Joan Mitchell.
According to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, Spoutz made a lucrative career selling forged art as originals from American masters like De Kooning, Kline, and Mitchell. He used forged documents, assumed new identities, and swindled art collectors out of over $1 million.
For over a decade, Spoutz sold dozens of fraudulent works of art through various channels, including auction houses and eBay. He was accused of selling forged works of art as early as 2005, after which he began selling them under various aliases.
Spoutz created and provided forged receipts, bills of sale, and letters from deceased attorneys and other individuals to deceive his victims into believing the works of art were authentic. Despite his efforts to create false histories for the artwork, investigators identified multiple inconsistencies and errors in Spoutz’s forged provenance documents.
In total, Spoutz stole at least $1,450,000 from his victims over the course of a decade of fraudulent art sales. In addition to his prison sentence, Spoutz was ordered to forfeit $1,450,000 in ill-gotten gains and to pay restitution in the amount of $154,100.
The FBI’s Art Crime Team was praised for their outstanding investigative work in the case.
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Key Facts
- State: New York
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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