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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 7948184, member: 110350&quot;]No jail time recommended for Sadigh after guilty plea:</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/arts/design/fake-antiquities-mehrdad-sadigh.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/arts/design/fake-antiquities-mehrdad-sadigh.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/arts/design/fake-antiquities-mehrdad-sadigh.html</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Antiquities Dealer Admits Mass-Producing Fakes He Sold for Years</p><p><br /></p><p>The owner of a longtime Manhattan gallery said in court that while some customers thought they were buying ancient items, they were actually modern knockoffs, just made to look old.</p><p><br /></p><p>By Colin Moynihan</p><p><br /></p><p>Oct. 13, 2021, 11:26 a.m. ET</p><p><br /></p><p>For decades customers interested in all manner of rarities — ancient coins, sarcophagus masks, prehistoric fossils — went to Mehrdad Sadigh’s gallery near the Empire State Building in Manhattan. The items came with certificates of authenticity, and the gallery’s website was filled with accolades from customers who appreciated the gracious touch he brought to his business.</p><p><br /></p><p>“Everything I have acquired from you over the years has more than exceeded my expectations,” one testimonial read.</p><p><br /></p><p>But Mr. Sadigh acknowledged Tuesday during a sentencing hearing that much about his antiquities business was an elaborate scam.</p><p><br /></p><p>“Over the course of three decades I have sold thousands of fraudulent antiquities to countless unsuspecting collectors,” he said, according to the statement he read in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, adding, “I can only say that I was driven by financial greed.”</p><p><br /></p><p>Many of the objects he was selling were not centuries-old artifacts unearthed overseas and imported to New York, investigators had said, but were, rather, phony specimens, mass-produced in a warren of offices just behind his showroom.</p><p><br /></p><p>Mr. Sadigh pleaded guilty to seven felony counts that included charges of forgery and grand larceny. In a sentencing memorandum filed with the court the district attorney’s office asked that Mr. Sadigh, who has no previous record of arrests, be sentenced to five years’ probation and banned from ever again being involved in the sale of antiquities, “both genuine and fake.”</p><p><br /></p><p>[More at link]</p><p><br /></p><p>No mention of any restitution required, either.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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