Businessman Held in Bogus Art Sting

Using a local schoolteacher to set up a sting operation, police have arrested the owner of an antique shop for allegedly selling seven pieces of fake art work, including a bogus Picasso study, for $25,000.

“There’s that old adage, ‘If it seems too good to be true . . .,’ ” said Richard Neville, a Huntington Beach teacher and art collector who bought the artwork from Thomas Harbison Donahue. “Well, this just seemed too good to be true. But I get very fanatical about things. I’m very impulsive.”

Donahue was arrested Tuesday at his shop, Thomas Donahue Antiques in the 1500 block of Pacific Coast Highway. Free on $10,000 bail, he faces arraignment July 31 on felony charges of grand theft and forgery.

Donahue could not be contacted Thursday. His attorney, Morton Fox, said he was not prepared to discuss some details of the case, but added: “The paintings that were sold . . . to the best of my client’s knowledge, are not fakes. He did research and bought them through estates or through other reputable dealers, and no complaints were ever made to my client” by Neville.

“If indeed those pictures are not genuine, my client had no knowledge of that,” he said.

From late January through March of this year, authorities said, Donahue sold Neville six pieces of art for $11,000. Neville said the works were undisplayed and struck him as great bargains.

Most of these six were pencil or ink sketches. One, a picture of two boys said to be a study by Picasso for his 1906 work, “Two Brothers,” sold for $1,500.

All were signed by noted artists such as German Expressionist Emil Nolde and American John Marin. All, authorities said, were fakes.

Most were accompanied by what were said to be signed certificates of authenticity from Christie’s of Beverly Hills, a world-renowned auction house. Authorities said the forgery charge against Donahue stems from the faked signature of Christie’s administrator Hillary Niblo on the certificates.

Authorities were uncertain about the origin of the works.

Investigators said they believe one watercolor actually was painted by French artist Jean Dufy, although they said a work by him would have been worth less than the supposed signator--Post-Impressionist Paul Signac.

Some may not have even been created with fraud in mind. Investigators said that several of the sketches may have been done by talented students, copying the works of Picasso and others for art class.

Neville discovered that the paintings were fake in June, authorities said, when he contacted officials at Christie’s to try to auction several of the pieces.

Neville--who runs a side business importing hammocks from Brazil and took out a $25,000 loan against his house to finance his art collection--had also put $3,000 down on a watercolor painting he thought had been done by Signac.

After his discovery, Neville contacted Laguna Beach police. Investigators encouraged him to complete the sale on the Signac to gain more evidence against Donahue. They gave him $11,000 in cash--the balance of the deal--and set up the sting. Soon after Neville walked out of the shop with the Signac, authorities arrested Donahue.