Former Sotheby's chairman, Alfred Taubman, was sentenced to one year and a day in prison and fined $7.5 million for spearheading a scheme with rival Christie's to fix commission fees in a multimillion dollar scam that shook the art world.
He was sentenced by US District Judge George Daniels, who earlier refused to grant the 78-year-old real estate magnate a new trial. The judge said in that ruling the evidence presented during the trial revealed Taubman was not merely a member of the conspiracy, but was rather the initiating and driving force behind it.
"Regardless of what he has obtained in life, no one is above the law", said "Daniels in reading Taubman's sentence.
"This was not a crime motivated by desperation and need, but arrogance and greed. ... He risked it all", he said.
The judge first sentenced Taubman to one year in jail, but then agreed to a defense request to add another day to make the former chairman eligible for time off for good behavior.
Prosecutors had argued Taubman should be given the maximum sentence of three years in the case replete with accusations of deceit and shady deals between the two auction houses that together control about 90 percent of the world's live auctions of art, jewelry and furniture.
Taubman's lawyers had argued in court papers he should be given probation. They said he has serious medical problems and that he has already paid a severe price for events that constitute an extraordinary aberration when measured against the whole of his life.