Florida art dealer sentenced for Andy Warhol forgery scheme

Leslie Howard Roberts, a 63-year-old art dealer and owner of the Miami Fine Art Gallery in Coconut Grove, has been sentenced to three years and 10 months in federal prison. Roberts pleaded guilty in a Miami federal court to conspiracy to commit wire fraud involving a scheme to sell counterfeit Andy Warhol artworks.

Prosecutors stated that Roberts fraudulently claimed the pieces were originals acquired directly from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, utilizing fake invoices to deceive collectors. He was also ordered to pay restitution of approximately $2.6 million. A co-conspirator, Carlos Miguel Rodriguez Melendez, allegedly assisted the scheme by posing as an employee of a New York-based auction company to facilitate the sale of the forged art.