Mastro and Allen Indicted

[T206Collector]

Even Alfred Taubman, convicted Sotheby's price-fixer, was sentenced to just a year and a day in prison -- though he was fined $7.5 million. And how about Diane "DeDe Brooks" who did 6 months house arrest? Do we think what they did was better or worse? And when did Sotheby's go out of business exactly?





A Taubman's Bidder End. Sotheby's Big Prison-Bound as Appeal is Nixed, John Lehmann, New York Post, 07/26/2002, p. 16.
The Post reported here that "Convicted Sotheby's price-fixer Alfred Taubman has consigned himself to becoming a multimillionaire inmate next week after his appeal was thrown out yesterday."

A three-judge appeals panel in Manhattan heard his appeal and ruled that any errors in his price-fixing trial were "harmless."

Mr. Taubman was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and fined $7.5 million. Apparently the extra day made the sentence just long enough to qualify for early release.

At the hearing before the appeals panel, Mr. Taubman's lawyers brought yet another name to the attention of the public. They accused another ex-Sotheby's board member, Lord Thomas Camoys, of conspiring with Christie's chief Sir Anthony Tennant in April 1995.

Mr. Taubman's lawyers also objected to a quotation used by the prosecution in summing up the case to the jury. The quote was from the economic classic, "The Wealth of Nations" written by the 18th-century economist Adam Smith. The quote said, "People in the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment or diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public and in some contrivance to raise prices."

The Post then reported that in their decision not to grant the appeal, the Court ruled that the government had relied on 'the overwhelming direct evidence of Taubman's knowledge of and participation in the conspiracy."

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Sotheby's Convict is Sprung, Adam Miller, New York Post, 11/10/2002.
Mr. Miller wrote here that "Disgraced auction empress Diana 'DeDe' Brooks laid low yesterday, a day after she completed her six months of house arrest for her role in a price-fixing scheme."

He explained that the former president of Sotheby's was sentenced earlier in the year after pleading guilty to fixing commissions and fees with rival art auction house, Christie's, and testifying against Alfred Taubman, her boss, who was sentenced to a year and a day for his role in the conspiracy.

He also wrote that "the deposed auction queen" also received three years probation, a $350,000 fine and 1,000 hours of community sentence and that the judge called her "a thief and a convict."