Douglas Chrismas, who was found guilty last May on three counts of embezzlement from his gallery’s bankruptcy estate, is to report to prison on Feb. 17.
Douglas Chrismas, a pioneering art dealer who was convicted in May on three counts of embezzling from his gallery’s bankruptcy estate, was sentenced on Monday in federal court to 24 months in prison.
Mr. Chrismas, 80, helped build the Los Angeles art scene of the 1970s and ’80s through ambitious exhibitions at his gallery, Ace. But he was plagued by lawsuits from artists and landlords over lack of payment, with even Andy Warhol in a 1979 diary entry describing lack of compensation for sales. Mr. Chrismas has spent much of the last decade embroiled in prolonged bankruptcy proceedings.
The sentencing had been postponed until this month, and in the interim his defense lawyers filed briefs pushing for “a noncustodial sentence” such as probation, citing his age as a factor. Federal prosecutors argued for 10 years out of the maximum of 15 years in prison.
Currently released on bond, Mr. Chrismas is scheduled to report to prison on Feb. 17.
The government provided presentencing statements from those affected by Mr. Chrismas’s crimes. In one victim statement, Robert Kwan, a U.S. bankruptcy judge who presided over Ace’s Chapter 11 proceedings, wrote: “These crimes of embezzlement of funds of approximately $264,000 as found in the criminal case were only ‘the tip of the iceberg,’ that is, only a part of a pervasive pattern and practice of wrongful diversion of funds” by Mr. Chrismas, “resulting in losses of over $14 million to the bankruptcy estate.”
Mr. Kwan described “great intangible harm” to the “integrity of the bankruptcy system,” resulting in “costly investigation and litigation.”
In a statement from Sam Leslie, the appointed bankruptcy trustee, Mr. Leslie described a “pattern of lies and thefts” by Mr. Chrismas, which included diverting funds from his gallery to a defunct New York gallery and a nonoperational museum. Mr. Leslie, who brought a civil suit against Mr. Chrismas, and obtained a judgment against him in 2022, said that “the total amount of money he diverted, more than $14 million, would have been sufficient to pay all creditors in the Chapter 11 case. Instead, the remaining claims will never be paid.”
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