Laguna Beach Art Dealer Gets Prison for Selling Collectors Forged Paintings

VAN NUYS —  A Laguna Beach art dealer has been sentenced to two years in prison for selling San Fernando Valley art collectors nearly $90,000 in copies of authentic paintings by Chagall, Erte and Picasso, the Los Angeles Police Department said Thursday.

Theodore John Robertson Jr., 46, was also ordered to pay $88,600 in restitution Tuesday in Los Angeles Municipal Court, Detective Bill Martin said. Robertson was sentenced after pleading guilty to four counts of grand theft, one count of selling a security without permission and one count of making false statements in the sale of a security.

In several cases, Robertson acquired authentic works by Chagall and other artists and used the receipts from those sales to sell copies of the paintings to investors, Martin said.

“We found and booked into evidence three identical Chagalls,” Martin said. “One was real and the two others had been made.”

Robertson was extradited in September from Paris to New York, where he pleaded guilty to federal charges, but he is awaiting sentencing on those charges, Martin said. Nationwide, Robertson is estimated to have bilked investors out of as much as half a million dollars through art dealings, Martin said.

Robertson was extradited from New York to Los Angeles on Monday and the following day he was arraigned and sentenced.