Auckland interior designer Stephanie Overton. Photo / Babiche Martens
A crooked British art dealer who sold Picassos and other renowned pieces while swindling clients, including a Kiwi, for more than US$10 million has been jailed for up to 12 years.
Timothy Sammons, 63, illicitly sold an extraordinary catalogue of artworks including Picasso's Buste de Femme, Marc Chagall's Reverie and Henry Moore's Reclining Nude, Daily Mail reports.
A wealthy Auckland interior designer, Stephanie Overton, ex-wife of multimillionaire beer baron Sir Douglas Myers, was swindled out of a US$2.5 million Picasso.
She previously settled the matter out of court after she launched legal action in New York after she had fallen victim to the high-profile art dealer's scam.
Overton said that masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Raoul Dufy, Henry Moore and Tom Wesselmann had been used in dodgy deals by Sammons.
However, other victims came forward, including a luxury Caribbean hotelier, Florida-based philanthropist and New York financier.
Sammons, who operated out offices in London's upscale Mayfair district as well as New York's Upper East Side, admitted to several counts of grand larceny and scheming to defraud as part of a plea deal on July 2.
He was sentenced to 4 to 12 years jail by a judge at Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday (local time).
Between 2010 and 2015, Timothy Sammons Fine Art Agents brokered deals for clients and either "misled them" about the timing of the sales, or "failed entirely" to inform them that he had sold the pieces before pocketing the profits for himself.
The trained solicitor set up his own fine art agency in 1995 after serving as head of auctioneer Sotheby's Chinese art department.
He operated as a respected agent and trusted confidante of aristocratic dynasties, matching up private buyers with discreet sellers.
Among his deals was the sale of John Singer Sargent's painting Cashmere to the Bill Gates Foundation for a record-breaking $8.8 million.
But he was accused of misappropriating rare artworks placed in his care during complex sales negotiations, which sometimes lasted for years.
"When brokering the sales of high-priced, one-of-a-kind paintings, Timothy Sammons had lying, scamming, and stealing down to a fine art," said District Attorney Vance.
"For years, the defendant peddled a deceitful, money-spinning scheme, garnering the trust of prospective buyers and sellers only to defraud them of millions and use the ill-gotten gains to fund his lavish lifestyle."
Sammons bought private club memberships, luxury travel accommodations and credit card payments with the money he stole, according to Vance.
"The emotional harm and financial harm done to the victims of this crime is very serious," Justice Ann Scherzer said.
Sammons' lawyer, David Touger, said in court that while his client concedes he took money, he denies using any of the stolen funds for his own personal enjoyment and claims it was only used for business purposes.
At his sentencing, Sammons said he was "extremely sorry for all the trouble it's caused people," adding that it "was not my intention to cause any grief at all."
Sammon's assets worth $7 million were frozen by the High Court in 2015 and his company, Timothy Sammons Limited, declared bankrupt.
In 2017, he had his passport confiscated and saw his £4 million home in Primrose Hill in North London repossessed after he defaulted on loans.
Until his deportation, he lived in a friend's basement away from his wife, who lived on handouts from friends and received around £15,000 a year that Sammons still earned advising clients.
After he serves his sentence, he will be deported back to the United Kingdom.
Legal documents filed with the US District Court Southern District of New York, seen by the Herald, alleged that Sammons was running a "Ponzi scheme" where he deceived owners of valuable art into believing that he would sell them, or hold them, on their behalf.
"Sammons would then sell or borrow against the artworks and use the money for himself and his family including, [at least once], to pay for a jet to travel to a beachfront home in South Africa," the complaint claimed.
Another New York art market player, Andrew Rose, was alleged to have offered Sammons loans worth hundreds of thousands, with the artworks put up by Sammons as collateral.
Rose is also alleged to have "purchased" four of Overton's artworks from Sammons, who had no authority to sell them, for "low prices in undocumented transactions" in the "hope that the work would be sold and the proceeds paid to cover purported loans and the extraordinary fees and expenses that Rose's companies charge".
It was against Rose - formerly of both Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses - and his companies that Overton pursued legal action.
She sought the return of the artworks by some of the world's most recognisable artists and at least $2m in compensation.
The case, which was destined for a jury trial, was settled "pursuant to a court-ordered stipulation" last October.
Overton and Myers collected a number of valuable pieces of fine art during their marriage in the 1970s and 1980s.
When they split amicably in the mid-1980s, Overton received sole title to all of the works, which included one of Picasso's Buste de Femme paintings, Chagall's Reverie, Modigliani's Caryatid, Dufy's Syracuse, Moore's Reclining Nude, and Wesselmann's Collage Study for the Mouth, No. 10.
"Overton held the works both for her aesthetic enjoyment for herself, as well as for her three children, and potentially as assets that could provide financial security in her later years," the statement of facts says.
In 2008, on the advice of her ex-husband, she consulted Sammons about the possible sale of an artwork.
He found a buyer for her and over the next five years, Overton kept in contact with the art merchant.
After moving to a Devonport beachfront mansion, storing the fine art so close to the sea became an issue for specialist insurers.
She moved some of the works to a gallery while Sammons allegedly offered to hold and insure all of Overton's works in London. He is also said to have offered to have reproductions of the art made so that Overton could be reminded of them at home.
At no time did Overton authorise Sammons to transport the works to the United States, or use them as collateral or security for loans, or to sell them, the court documents say.
But Sammons allegedly used the artworks as collateral to obtain large loans from Rose.
Christie's auction house had reportedly advised that it could sell the Picasso work in a private sale for US$2.5m ($3.5m).
However, it was allegedly sold for US$1.6m, with Rose's company said to have received US$1.55m and Sammons US$50,000.
The court documents state: "Overton cannot recover the Picasso work from its current owner, whom she has been advised is a good-faith buyer."
Overton had sought to recover the artworks as well as the losses she suffered, "including more than $2m she has lost from the sale of her Picasso that, despite the bargain basement price, unjustly enriched Rose and his companies by more than $1.55m".
When contacted by the Herald at her Devonport home, Overton refused to comment on the settlement, including whether she had successfully retrieved her beloved artworks.
"I'm not going to be talking about that," she said.
Her New York lawyer John R. Cahill confirmed all parties are subject to a confidentiality agreement.
Sammons, a former expert at top auction house Sotheby's, was reported in 2015 as being sued in the UK's High Court by the family trust of legendary high street retailers WH Smith.
The trust was reportedly trying to recover a $1.6 million painting by Venetian landscape artist Canaletto that Sammons allegedly sold and failed to pass on the proceeds.
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