A man was sentenced Tuesday to more than two years in prison for his role in a plot to sell forged paintings that he claimed to be the work of a renowned Louisiana folk artist.
U.S. District Judge Dee Drell in Alexandria sentenced Robert E. Lucky Jr., 64, of New Orleans, to 25 months in prison and ordered him to perform 200 hours of community service and pay nearly $327,000 in restitution.
Lucky pleaded guilty in August to one count of mail fraud. He was charged with conspiring with a Baton Rouge couple, William and Beryl Ann Toye, to sell fake Clementine Hunter paintings to unsuspecting art collectors.
The Toyes were sentenced in October to two years of probation.
Lucky’s attorney didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
Prosecutors said Lucky sold many of the forgeries that William Toye, 80, painted. Toye and his wife, who is 70, also allegedly sold some of the paintings themselves.
Hunter, a black folk artist who died in 1988 at age 101, taught herself to paint while living in rural Natchitoches Parish. Her paintings depict cotton picking, baptisms, funerals and other scenes of plantation life and can sell for thousands of dollars apiece.
Prosecutors described Lucky as a well-known figure in the antique and art community who owned a shop in Natchitoches before he worked for a New Orleans antiques and art dealer. He allegedly used the dealer’s letterhead to promote his sale of forged paintings, which he claimed to have acquired from Hunter collectors and investors.
The FBI said in a 2009 court filing that Lucky learned from experts that the Toyes’ paintings were forgeries but continued to sell them.
"There is no doubt that Ms. Hunter was a gem of the State of Louisiana and our nation. Her artwork was her legacy to all of us. Robert Lucky and the Toyes not only committed fraud as it related to her paintings, but they also diminished her legacy, all for greed."
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