Local Art Gallery Owners Sentenced in Art Fraud Scheme

NEW ORLEANS, LA—CHRISTOPHER BREITHOFF, 35, and CONSTANCE “CONNIE” BREITHOFF, 60, both of Covington, Louisiana, were sentenced today in federal court by U.S. District Judge Eldon E. Fallon Conspiracy for their role in a consiracy to commit Mail Fraud, announced U.S. Attorney Jim Letten.

Specifically, CHRISTOPHER BREITHOFF was sentenced to twenty-one (21) months in prison; and his mother CONNIE BREITHOFF was sentenced to eighteen (18) months in prison.In addition, the BREITHOFF’s were ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $924,023.09 and incidental expenses to the victims, as well as place $50,000 in an escrow to be held for 24 months in the event additional victims are discovered, and serve three (3) years supervised release during which time the defendants will be under federal supervision and risk additional imprisonment should they violate any terms of the release.

CHRISTOPHER BREITHOFF and his mother CONSTANCE BREITHOFF previously pled guilty on October 22, 2008 to a Bill of Information for Conspiracy to Commit Mail Fraud.

Since 2004, defendants CHRISTOPHER BREITHOFF and CONSTANCE BREITHOFF owned and operated the Barlow Art Gallery and Transitions, (“Barlow”), 3523 Highway 190, Mandeville, Louisiana. From 1999 to 2005, defendants operated a Barlow location at 805 Royal Street in the French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana. According to documents filed in federal court, the defendants devised a scheme to defraud Barlow customers through various misrepresentations. Specifically, the BREITHOFFs would purchase, in bulk, Chinese paintings from wholesale distributors knowing that the paintings would be resold by Barlow as original works of local and regional emerging artists. CONSTANCE BREITHOFF concocted fictional artist identities, biographies, and unique signatures to mask the true nature and origin of the Chinese paintings.In some instances, CONSTANCE BREITHOFF would paint over any existing signatures on the Chinese artwork and would then paint the bogus artist’s unique signature.

The BREITHOFFs and employees of Barlow would misrepresent the true artist’s identity to its customers and would provide Barlow customers with fictional written biographies of the non-existent artists that defendants created. Defendants would advertise on their website and represent to their customers in person that artwork sold at Barlow was painted by “hand-picked local and regional artists” and by “emerging artists” knowing that to be untrue.

Further, CHRISTOPHER BREITHOFF, CONSTANCE BREITHOFF, and employees of Barlow would mail a Certificate of Authenticity along with a description of the fictional artist to the customer. Further, some employees of Barlow would represent to customers that the artwork sold at Barlow would likely appreciate in value as the artist became more popular.

This matter was investigated by special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, New Orleans Division. The prosecution of this case was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian M. Klebba, who is the Computer and High Intellectual Property Coordinator for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.