Inigo Philbrick is going to jail. A United States District Court judge today sentenced the disgraced art dealer to seven years behind bars for crimes related to his now-collapsed art dealing business.

Prosecutors accused Philbrick of committing “one of the most significant frauds in the history of the art market”, describing his operation in a sentencing memorandum as “Ponzi-like”. He pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of wire fraud last November and has been in jail for nearly two years.

Although authorities recommended that Philbrick be sentenced to less than official government guidelines of 10 to 12.5 years, they asked for “a meaningful prison term, significantly more” than the sentence Philbrick had already served.

Once one of the best-connected players in the contemporary art market, Philbrick fled the United States in October 2019 as civil lawsuits against him began to pile up. He allegedly sold over 100% shares of artwork he did not own, forged contracts, forged signatures and invented fictitious clients in order to propel his ruse.

“Lies permeated almost every aspect of the defendant’s business,” prosecutors said, noting that he spent his victims’ funds buying art to attract more investors, pay other clients and to finance his own extravagant lifestyle.

Dressed in maroon jail clothes, Philbrick was escorted into the courtroom on Monday afternoon by two sheriffs. Behind his mask, his face seemed thin; he showed little emotion during the approximately two-hour debates.

Also in the room were his fiancée, reality TV star Victoria Baker-Harber, with whom he shares a daughter, and Philbrick’s mother, Jane.

Philbrick’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, has spoken at length about why his client deserves leniency, from the relentless media coverage to the impact of his parents’ contentious divorce when he was a teenager. He noted that Philbrick began cooperating with US authorities as soon as he boarded a plane from Vanuatu, where he fled and was arrested by the FBI in June 2020.

The judge didn’t have it. “You blame that? Because her parents divorced? Judge Sidney Stein said after listing a litany of Philbrick’s crimes.

At the end of the proceedings, Philbrick spoke from a prepared statement that was often difficult to hear through the mask. He said he hoped there was “no confusion” about the level of “remorse and grief” he felt for the damage he had caused. He described his behavior as “scandalous and inexcusable” and apologized for his “disastrous and destructive acts”.

In the middle of his statement, the judge cut him off for a mandatory court break. When the session resumed, Philbrick said he was no longer going to read the prepared statement he had written in his jail cell.

He went on to talk about the shame and embarrassment he carried with him every day, admitting he had put himself in over his head from the start of running his own gallery. Instead of telling the truth earlier, he said, “a big part of the origin was that I tried to solve that first problem.”

Philbrick’s fraud is estimated at just over $86 million and he agreed to pay the same amount in restitution. It is unclear exactly how much money he actually has left; several paintings passed through his hands are the subject of legal battles between multiple investors and lenders. Many of his victims may never recover their lost property, prosecutors said.

In a letter to court in early April, Daniel Tümpel, owner of Fine Art Partners (FAP) with his wife, Loretta Würtenberger, wrote that Philbrick “betrayed everyone he had worked with. Inigo Philbrick is a ruthless criminal, driven by greed and the desire to fund his lavish lifestyle.

A painting by Rudolf Stingel from 2012 is at the center of the Philbrick case. Image courtesy of Christie’s.

Their lawsuit seeks over $13 million in lost funds and artwork, including paintings by Rudolf Stingel, Yayoi Kusama and Christopher Wool. Tümpel and Wurtenbergerwho made around 20 deals with Philbrick through FAP between 2014 and 2019, said they now believe Philbrick was cheating them from the start by paying them money on sales that never happened.

Tümpel estimated the financial “damage” to his family to be approximately $22 million, plus another potential $1 million in legal fees. The couple, who were unable to attend the sentencing, requested instead to connect remotely from Germany.

Prosecutors noted that Philbrick also defrauded his mentor Jay Jopling, the owner of the White Cube gallery, where he got his start as an intern. When Philbrick was slow to pay Jopling for a Christopher Wool painting, he created a fake email account for a fictitious client, an Argentinian financier named Martin Herrero, who was believed to be a relative of Philbrick’s girlfriend, Francisca Mancini. Philbrick provided Jopling with a forged bill of sale and continued to correspond with his former boss as Herrero over the next year, manufacturing “a variety of excuses” as to why the payment was delayed.

Asked about today’s jail sentence, a representative from the White Cube said: “Mr. Jopling suffered substantial financial loss as a result of Mr. Philbrick’s frauds. As legal proceedings are still ongoing regarding these losses, he cannot comment further.

Authorities described Philbrick’s scheme as “both extended and cheeky. According to the sentencing memo, he and an associate “used subtly derogatory nicknames to refer to some of their victims” and kept spreadsheets showing which victims owned what percentage of artwork – in many cases, corresponding over 100%.

“A handwritten note recovered from the defendant’s gallery in Miami spoke of one of the defendant’s repeat victims,” ​​the prosecutors’ memo continues, “and posed the question, ‘How do you fuck them?’

Speaking at the courthouse after the hearing, Lichtman, Philbrick’s lawyer, said he was grateful the sentence was handed down under sentencing guidelines given the value high in fraud.

“He’s the easiest customer,” Lichtman said of Philbrick. “It’s because he recognizes that he is no longer fighting against it. He’s here to try to make things right and he’s going to have a second chapter in his life. Not everyone moves that fast in that direction. I have high hopes for him.”

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