Man gets 5 years in prison for TV art scam

A federal judge has sentenced a Woodland Hills man to five years in prison for his involvement in a fake art scam that cheated about 10,000 people across the country.

Fine Art Treasures appeared weekly on Direct TV and the Dish Network between 2002 and 2006. Sixty-three-year-old James Mobley was the loud, frenetic “Auctioneeer Jimmy” who hawked Picasso, Chagall and Dali prints from, he said, estate sales all over the world.

Investigators found that the signatures on those prints were still wet — and that the auction bids were rigged to inflate prices. Lots of people with disposable cash couldn’t resist. Prosecutors say the scam brought in about $20 million.

Mobley pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and failing to file a tax return.

Earlier this year the two people at the center of the fake art scam — a husband and wife from La Cañada who’d printed the art in their own shop — received sentences of four and seven years in federal prison, respectively.