Berks County Man Sentenced for Art Fraud Scheme

PHILADELPHIA - United States Attorney David Metcalf announced that Carter Reese, 77, of Reading, Pennsylvania, was sentenced today by United States District Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl to 60 days in prison, two years of supervised release with four months on home detention, a $50,000 fine, and restitution of $186,125, in connection with a scheme in which Reese defrauded customers by making false representations about the source and authenticity of certain art purportedly created by prominent artists.

Reese was charged by information in May of this year with one count of wire fraud and one count of mail fraud and pleaded guilty the same month.

As detailed in court filings and admitted to by the defendant, from about February 2019 to March 2021, Reese sold and attempted to sell art that he represented as genuine pieces created by prominent artists, including Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jean Cocteau, Keith Haring, Fernand Léger, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and others. Reese knew that the pieces were fake and had not been created by those artists.

The case was investigated by members of the FBI's Art Crime Team assigned to the Philadelphia and Miami field offices and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Ruth Mandelbaum and Jason Grenell.