Woman Arrested for Selling Fake Art on Ebay

Angela Hamblin, a Massachusetts woman, was arrested Oct. 10 on charges she sold fake works of art on the Internet.[1] She was charged with one count of mail fraud, and was arrested in Boston on a criminal complaint brought in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.[2]

Authorities are accusing her of claiming that the works she was selling on Ebay were created by accomplished artists such as Joseph Mallord, William Turner, or Milton Avery, an American abstract expressionist painter.[3] The Government asserts that the paintings actually were not authentic, despite her claims that she acquired the pieces from long-dead relatives or through other family connections.[4]

She has been charged with mail fraud which is covered under 18 U.S.C. § 1341.[5] In that statute it states that whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, or to sell, dispose of, loan, exchange, alter, give away, distribute, supply, or furnish or procure for unlawful use any counterfeit or spurious coin, obligation, security, or other article, or anything represented to be or intimated or held out to be such counterfeit or spurious article, for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice or attempting so to do, places in any post office or authorized depository for mail matter, any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by the Postal Service, or deposits or causes to be deposited any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by any private or commercial interstate carrier, or takes or receives therefrom, any such matter or thing, or knowingly causes to be delivered by mail or such carrier according to the direction thereon, or at the place at which it is directed to be delivered by the person to whom it is addressed, any such matter or thing, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.[6] If the violation affects a financial institution, such person shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.[7]

If convicted, Hamblin could face up to 20 years in prison the mail fraud count brought against her.[8] Federal criminal defense attorney Douglas McNabb has previously discussed the federal crime of mail fraud, at length, here.

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[1] AP Staff, Woman accused of selling fake art work, Associated Press Newswire, October 10, 2007, available at LEXIS, News Library, Wire News Services File.
[2] Id.
[3] Staff and wire reports, The Ticker, Boston Globe, October 11, 2007, available at http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1037366 (last visited October 18, 2007).
[4] AP Staff, supra note 1.
[5] Id.
[6] 18 U.S.C. § 1341(2007).
[7] Id.
[8] AP Staff, supra note 1.