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Andy Warhol made 46 copies of this print depicting Vladimir Lenin.
US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California
An Ohio man has agreed to plead guilty to trafficking a stolen Andy Warhol worth about $175,000.
Brian Alec Light, a 58-year-old from the city of Hudson, will appear in federal court on October 28, according to a statement of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
The maximum penalty for this charge is ten years in federal prison. As part of his plea deal, Light will also turn over the stolen artwork recovered by police ART newsKaren K. Ho reports.
The stolen Warhol is a gray, yellow and red screen print depicting the former leader of the Soviet Union Vladimir Lenin. The piece, created in 1987, was one of 46 proofs.
“Each example is unique, making them much more unique and prized by collectors,” said Phil Selway, CEO of Hamilton Selway gallery in West Hollywood, says ART news.
According to Light 25-page plea agreementa thief stole the Warhol print from a Los Angeles County home in early 2021. The victim reported the theft to both the police and Hamilton Selway, who had sold the print to the current owner.
Days after the incident, the thief sold the artwork to a pawn shop. The store’s owner contacted Light, who knew the work had been stolen, and asked him to help sell it. Light quickly arranged for the print to be shipped from Beverly Hills to Dallas, where it would be inspected prior to its Spring 2021 sale at Heritage auctions.
An auction house employee contacted Hamilton Selway to ask his opinion on the piece, per the plea agreement. Gallery employees immediately recognized it as the stolen Warhol. They notified both the auction house and the FBI.
“We saw it was up for auction for Heritage and let them know there was a possible problem with the piece,” Selway said. ART news. “We wanted them to know something was going on there.”
Neither Heritage Auctions nor Hamilton Selway are named in the plea deal, which was first reported by Courthouse News Serviceby Matt Simons.
“On March 8, 2021, the FBI interviewed [the] defendant about the artwork and its theft,” the settlement states. “The FBI agent notified [the] complained that she was a federal agent and [that] it was a crime to lie to federal agents.”
Despite this warning, Light told the agent that he had purchased the print at a garage sale in Los Angeles for $18,000 in cash. Two days later, he emailed police a fake receipt.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office says the FBI’s art crimes team is still investigating the case.
This isn’t the first missing Warhol artwork to make headlines in recent months. In March, a screen print of Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong disappeared from a community college in California. That print is estimated to be worth $50,000.
