James Meyer, a former assistant of the iconic American artist Jasper Johns, was sentenced by a Manhattan district Court to 18 months in prison for theft of works from the artist's Studio. Previously, the defendant admitted in the investigation that in the period from 2006 to 2012 he stole a total of 22 works of Jasper Johns from his Studio in Connecticut and sold them through a new York gallery. Mayer worked as an assistant to the Patriarch of postwar American art for more than 25 let@

James Meyer was selling stolen works through Manhattan gallery by convincing the owners that they were gifts from Jones. These were unfinished works that Jasper Jones was not allowed to sell. The gallery, according to the Prosecutor, was rescued in these studies is 6.5 million dollars. Of these, Mayer got 3.4 million. Assistant forged part numbers for the stolen items, to convince dealers that they are completed and approved by the Johns for sale, and also pages from the log book of works in the Studio. In the documents that he copied and passed to the gallery owner, said that the work of Mayer were "donated". And so the deception was quickly discovered, with buyers works Mayer took the receipt that in the next eight years, the owners will not sell or give on vystavki@

After Mayer pleaded guilty, he agreed to pay a fine of up to $ 4 million for damages. The defendant himself had once tried to become an artist. To expose the thief helped partly the fact that since 2007, Mayer began to openly demonstrate their suddenly acquired wealth: moved into an expensive house, bought some new cars, motorcycles and even ahtu@

Material was prepared by Maria Onuchin, AI

Sources: artnet.com, artinvestment.ru