LOS ANGELES (KTLA) – An 80-year-old internationally known art dealer from Los Angeles has been sentenced to two years in federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $13 million in restitution, officials announced earlier this month.
Douglas J. Chrismas, president and CEO of Art and Architecture Books of the 21st Century, which operated out of Miracle Mile and Beverly Hills offices as Ace Gallery, was convicted in May 2024 by a jury of three counts of embezzlement of an estate in bankruptcy, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.
The now 80-year-old opened his first gallery at the age of 17 in Los Angeles where he’s lived since 1969 and has reportedly been embroiled in legal troubles ever since, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Nearly 40 years ago, he pleaded no contest to charges that he stole some $1.3 million worth of contemporary artworks, including one from Andy Warhol, who The New York Times reported had complained about not receiving payments from the art dealer.
In Feb. 2013, Ace Galley filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court in Los Angeles while it continued to operate with Chrismas still in charge, prosecutors said.
More than three years later, in March and April 2016, the art dealer embezzled $264,595 belonging to the Ace Gallery bankruptcy estate, including a $50,000 check Chrismas signed out of the estate and paid to Ace Museum, a separate nonprofit corporation he owned and controlled.
Prosecutors added that he embezzled another $100,000 owed to the bankrupt gallery from a third party who had purchased artwork and, again, deposited the funds in Ace Museum accounts he controlled. An additional $114,595 owed to Ace Gallery by a customer was used by Chrismas to keep up on Ace Museum’s $225,000 monthly rent.
During his trial, one of his attorneys, Jennifer Williams, told the jury that her client didn’t dispute any of the transactions and said that as the owner of the gallery he believed he could “make loans himself to other companies within his gallery universe,” The Times reported.
At the conclusion of the four-day trial, the jury deliberated for less than an hour before returning its guilty verdicts.
“Instead of performing his fiduciary duty and properly managing the gallery’s bankruptcy estate, this defendant chose to use funds that belonged to the creditors of the gallery to make them whole, but for his dream of an art museum that never came to be,” said United States Attorney Martin Estrada. “Today’s sentence provides a just punishment for these crimes, which were brazenly undertaken by a thief who gamed a system designed to protect those in financial desperation.”
Along with a sentence of 24 months in federal prison, U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi ordered Chrismas to pay $12,809,192 in restitution.
