Wholesaler’s Files Seized in Art Fraud

Los Angeles police art fraud investigators Thursday searched the home of Larry Groeger, one of the West Coast’s leading wholesalers of popular prints, and discovered records showing that Groeger supplied “fraudulent” artworks to a popular chain of galleries raided last month, the chief investigator said.

Detective William Martin said business records seized during the search of Groeger’s Hollywood home showed that the 39-year-old businessman was the distributor of the Marc Chagall and Joan Miro prints confiscated during the earlier raid on the Upstairs Gallery chain.

Groeger, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, has not been charged in the case. But Martin said he is “under investigation . . . as a source of fraudulent graphics.”

Martin said police now will be seeking information on other art galleries that might have received prints from Groeger.

“Obviously Upstairs wasn’t his only customer,” Martin said. “But the investigation is continuing. We’re not going to comment on every gallery that might have been sold bad prints.”

Investigators seized Groeger’s business records and 60 graphics attributed to Chagall and Miro, according to Martin, the department’s art fraud expert. Police now hope to discover the art publisher who provided Groeger with the suspicious prints, he said.

Groeger’s company, Collections: A Fine Art Service, is known as one of the top, if not the top, distributors of popular graphics in the Western United States, a business that has blossomed in recent years due to the escalating demand for decorative art. Groeger runs his highly successful business out of his two-story Spanish villa in the Hollywood Hills.

The search of the Hollyridge Drive address is the latest step in a widening probe of Southern California art fraud. Police say that sophisticated forgers are making hundreds of millions of dollars from sales of fake prints.

Local and federal investigators confiscated 1,685 prints in last month’s raid on the popular Upstairs Gallery chain. Prosecutors have filed grand theft charges against the former manager of the chain’s Beverly Hills branch, Lee Sonnier, and another art broker, Frank de Marigny.

In an affidavit recently filed in Los Angeles Superior Court describing the search of the Upstairs Gallery, police told of finding dozens of phony Chagalls on the walls. Other prints were taken from the chain’s warehouse in Huntington Beach.

An independent appraiser inspected Upstairs’ inventory after the raid and removed any remaining works deemed to be suspicious, according to E. Timony Applegate, Upstairs Gallery’s general counsel.

Upstairs purchased “most” of its supposed Chagalls and Miros from Groeger, but had no reason to suspect the works were fakes until police said so, Applegate said.

BACKGROUND Local and federal authorities are conducting a major investigation of art fraud in the Southland. Last month, they seized 1,685 allegedly fraudulent copies of prints by such popular artists as Marc Chagall and Salvador Dali from the Upstairs Gallery, an eight-store chain based in Huntington Beach. Investigators said they hope eventually to find the source of the phony art, which is said to be making its way to more and more galleries in what has become a multimillion-dollar fraud.