MASSACHUSETTS WOMAN CHARGED
WITH SELLING FAKE WORKS OF ART

MICHAEL J. GARCIA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and MARK J. MERSHON, the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) announced today the arrest of ANGELA HAMBLIN on art fraud charges. HAMBLIN, 58, of Revere, Massachusetts, was charged with one count of mail fraud in connection with her scheme to sell fake works of art over the internet auction website eBay and in private transactions. HAMBLIN was arrested this morning at her home and later appeared in federal court in Boston. According to the Complaint unsealed today and filed in Manhattan federal court:

HAMBLIN engaged in a fraudulent scheme to sell various paintings that she represented to be works of art by such artists as Joseph Mallord William Turner (the British watercolorist and printmaker), Milton Avery (the American abstract expressionist painter), Franz Kline (the American abstract painter), and Juan Gris (the Spanish Cubist painter and sculptor), when she knew that the paintings were not authentic works of art by these famed artists. HAMBLIN made various claims about where she acquired the paintings, including that she or her husband had inherited the paintings from long-dead relatives, and that they purchased one of the paintings from a now-dead seller. With respect to one of the paintings, HAMBLIN claimed that the artist had given it to George Balanchine, the choreographer, who had in turn sold it to her great-grandfather.

Experts have determined that all four of the paintings described in the Complaint, which HAMBLIN offered for sale, are fakes. Experts made the determination by examining the paintings themselves or images of the paintings.

GARCIA praised the investigative work of the New York British and Boston offices of the FBI, which led to today's arrest.

If convicted, HAMBLIN faces a maximum of twenty years in prison on the mail fraud count charged in the Complaint.

This case is being prosecuted by the Major Crimes Unit of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. Assistant United States Attorney CHRISTINE MEDING is in charge of the prosecution.

The charges and allegations contained in the Complaint are merely accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

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