A Berks County man has been sentenced to a brief stint behind bars for hawking counterfeit art, some of which he claimed was created by renowned artists like Picasso and Warhol, federal prosecutors said.
According to a statement from the United States Attorney’s Office, Carter Reese, 77, of Reading, Pennsylvania was slapped with 60 days in prison, two years of supervised release, which includes four months of home detention, and a $50,000 fine. On top of his sentence, Reese has been ordered to pay restitution in the tune of $186,125 for his role in the fraudulent art scheme, a scheme, that was brought to its knees by the FBI’s Art Crime Team in Philadelphia and Miami.
The charges stem from a two-year period, between February 2019 and March 2021 when Reese tried to sell art pieces, he claimed were works of high-profile artists. The list of artists he falsely attributed these works to included Francis Bacon, Keith Haring, and Andy Warhol, among others. Reese admitted to knowing the art pieces were forgeries when he sold them…