Scam Artist Steals & Sells Counterfeit Paintings, Faces 100 Years in Jail

Matthew Taylor of Vero Beach, Florida is now a sworn enemy of the L.A. art scene. Arrested without incident on Thursday morning, Taylor, a former art dealer, faces a federal indictment that alleges he stole paintings from an art gallery in L.A. and sold the works to a collector under the false pretense that the works were those of esteemed artists.

Last week a federal grand jury in L.A. charged Taylor with seven felony counts related to art theft and a long-running fraud that targeted a Los Angeles art collector. Taylor reportedly sold over 100 paintings to the art collector victim, defrauding him out of over $2 million. Monet, Van Gogh, Pollock and Rothko are just a few of the famous artists whom Taylor claimed painted the works.

Taylor allegedly altered said artworks, including painting over signatures and adding labels of prestigious art institutions, to make them appear as products of the artists. Some of the counterfeit works posed as previous installments at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Guggenheim Museum. Taylor then sold the bogus pieces at prices "exponentially higher" than their actual value, per today's news release.

Let's take a look at some of the artsy details. The indictment accuses Taylor of swiping a Granville Redmond painting called “Seascape at Twilight” from a L.A. gallery and later selling it to a different gallery for $85k under the claim that his mother owned the piece for years. He also allegedly heisted a Lucien Frank painting titled “Park Scene, Paris” from that same gallery and was seen several years later in possession of the swindled painting at a gallery in Vero Beach.

In total, Taylor is charged with three counts of wire fraud, two counts of money laundering, one count of interstate transportation of stolen property and one count of possession of stolen property. Conviction of all seven counts will land him a maximum sentence of 100 years in federal prison. He will make his initial court appearance in United States District Court in Fort Pierce, Florida.