Local News in Brief : Art Thief Going to Prison
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A antique dealer was sentenced Monday to 16 months in state prison for stealing a painting valued at $13,500 from a women’s social club and conspiring with her daughter to sell it to a gallery.
Fawn Harris, 55, of Beverly Hills was also ordered by Superior Court Judge Jack Tenner to make restitution for the value of the painting and to pay $500 restitution to cover the legal fees of the gallery’s owner.
Harris was convicted last month of two counts of grand theft. Her daughter, Doe, also an antique dealer, was convicted of one count each of grand theft and receiving stolen property and is scheduled to be sentenced Friday.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Julie Sulman said Fawn Harris stole a 1925 painting by California Impressionist William Wendt, entitled “The Shore Road, Morro Bay,” from the Ebell Club, located at the historic Wilshire Ebell Theatre in the Mid-Wilshire District, last December. Harris sold it the next month to a Laguna Beach gallery.
Fawn Harris claimed at her trial that she owned the painting at the time she removed it from the club but was unable to produce proof, Sulman said.
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