Eric Spoutz's decade of forged provenance letters
Eric Spoutz, a Michigan art dealer who sold works through eBay and auction houses under his own name and aliases including "Robert Chad Smith" and "John Goodman," ran a decade-long scheme from at least 2006 through 2015 that forged provenance documents, receipts, bills of sale, and letters purportedly from deceased collectors and attorneys, to sell fake works he attributed to artists including Pablo Picasso, Willem de Kooning, Marc Chagall, Franz Kline and Joan Mitchell. He pleaded guilty in June 2016 to one count of wire fraud and was sentenced in February 2017 in Manhattan federal court to 41 months in prison, forfeiture of the $1.45 million he made from the scheme, and $154,100 in restitution.
- Year
- 2017
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Sentenced
- Reported loss
- $1.4 million
- Victims
- Not stated in the sources
- Schemes
- Art forgery fraud
- Last reviewed
- 2026-11-02
The facts, as recorded
- Spoutz was first publicly accused of selling forged art on eBay in 2005, after which he began operating under aliases including "Robert Chad Smith," "John Goodman," and "James Sinclair."
- He forged provenance documents including receipts, bills of sale, and letters purportedly written by deceased collectors and attorneys, some listing nonexistent addresses; in one instance, prosecutors traced a forged letter back to an original document held in a private university's collection.
- In 2010, using the name "Robert Smith," he consigned two Joan Mitchell pastels to a Connecticut auction house, claiming he had inherited them from a person who died in 1976; that person had actually left their collection to Dartmouth College.
- Investigators identified his forgeries partly by a single, distinctive typeface error that recurred across his fabricated documents.
- He was arrested in Los Angeles in February 2016 on wire fraud charges and pleaded guilty that June to a single count of wire fraud.
- US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced him on February 16, 2017, in Manhattan to 41 months in prison and three years of supervised release; he was also ordered to forfeit the $1.45 million he made from the scheme and pay $154,100 in restitution.
- Then-US Attorney Preet Bharara said Spoutz "made a lucrative 'career' selling forged art as originals" and that he "used the full palette of deception." Judge Kaplan told him, "I think you've been leading a fraudulent life for a very long time."
- Spoutz apologized in court, saying he had "betrayed the trust of my chosen field, my clients and my colleagues."
Why this case matters
This is the only case on this page where the operator did not paint the forgeries himself and did not run a gallery at all; Spoutz’s entire scheme was the paperwork, forged letters and receipts manufacturing a history for pieces sold through ordinary auction houses and eBay, the same channels any legitimate seller uses.
A single typeface gave him away
Investigators identified his forged documents partly through a recurring, distinctive error in the typeface he used across years of fabricated letters and receipts, a small, mechanical mistake that undid a scheme built entirely on paper rather than on the paintings themselves.
An inheritance that belonged to a university, not him
In one 2010 sale, Spoutz claimed he had inherited two Joan Mitchell pastels from a collector who died in 1976. That collector’s actual estate had gone to Dartmouth College, a fact investigators were able to check once they knew where to look, and exactly the kind of claim this scheme depends on buyers never checking themselves.
The caveat
Spoutz pleaded guilty and was sentenced; the facts above reflect his plea, the sentencing record, and contemporaneous reporting of the case, not merely an allegation. The $1.45 million forfeiture figure represents the scheme’s proceeds as determined by the court, not a confirmed total loss to every individual buyer; $154,100 was the restitution amount specifically tied to identified victims, and the exact number of people who bought his forgeries was not stated in the sources reviewed for this page.
Sources
- Michigan Art Dealer Gets Three Years in Prison for Selling Fake Paintings. NBC News. Accessed 2026-11-02. Supports: The February 2017 sentence, his aliases, the artists he forged documents for, the 2010 Connecticut auction house consignment and the Dartmouth College detail, his forfeiture and restitution amounts, and Judge Kaplan's and Andrew Adams's quotes.
- Detroit-Area Art Swindler Sentenced To Prison In $1.45M Scheme. Patch. Accessed 2026-11-02. Supports: The decade-long scheme timeline, his February 2016 arrest, the forged letters from dead people with nonexistent addresses, the distinctive typeface detail that helped expose him, and Preet Bharara's quotes.