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  • 4 days ago
The Great Art Fraud Season 1 Episode 2

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Transcript
00:00I will never forget being on the plane about to take off and they were coming
00:15around with the menus they handed Inigo the menu and he actually thought that
00:20he was being served papers and the look on his face was just after he realized
00:27that's just a menu he was like oh god okay it's fine it was almost like we could
00:33laugh about it you know it was a sigh of relief but also we were in the skies so
00:39that was a relief to did he tell you that he broken the laws that he done you
00:46know about all of these everyone breaks the law occasionally you know he told me
00:51what had happened but it wasn't really making that much sense to me it's like
00:55listening to someone who's got a sports injury about how they can't really play
00:57in like the next season of tennis once we left America he switched his phone off
01:05and never switched it back on
01:1040 million dollars 42 million dollars the world auction record the highest grossing
01:15option of all time
01:22inigo was a great storyteller to become a good art dealer it's about telling a story
01:28money was literally shooting out of the ground around me it was so extreme and so opulent I thought my god he must be the top art dealer in London right now the clubs the drugs the booze the planes the suits it became about that he just became delusional with success I'd never believe in love at first sight
02:05this is gonna be messy I didn't know how messy I was just wondering how can any go forward
02:12all of this where is it all coming from
02:19he could sell the same painting five times to five different people I thought oh my god if anyone finds out about this I'm gonna get in trouble
02:26he knew it wasn't gonna last he knew the writing was on the wall he became something else a monster
02:33it just crumbles like the house of cards just crumbled his whole life and career was built on lies
02:40wealthy people they're rich for a reason they don't like losing money this is the largest art base fraud in US history the official number is 86 million but it could be much bigger
02:57from one day to the next poof
03:01if the US government is willing to travel halfway around the world you know you're in serious trouble
03:07the judge asked me why I did it so I say for the money your honor
03:29my friends called me who worked at the gallery and she told me that she was served papers
03:35the guy like had waited to serve the papers apparently for days so he kind of threw them at the gallery
03:42I tried to contact Inigo
03:44his phone was disconnected
03:47so I reached out to the logistics guy
03:50and it bounced back to me immediately saying no longer works for Inigo Philbrick
03:55and I was like holy shit
03:58the guy just like disappeared
04:01so I mean I tried obviously to reach him
04:03he's not responding his lawyers are not responding
04:06he's just vanished
04:08and everybody was talking about where is Inigo Philbrick
04:12we get to Australia and they have the bush fires which is just crazy there was wind blowing and like fires were like out of control
04:31and we couldn't actually leave the airport leave the state because the fires were so bad so it was like okay like what do we do
04:39so that's when we were like okay let's see if we could go to Fiji
04:43there were no flights to Fiji
04:45like okay where can we go
04:47and then there's Vanuatu a flight in an hour and a half
04:50that's where we jumped on the plane and went to Vanuatu with no idea of what to expect
04:56Thank you for calling our offices are now closed
05:12Inigo is nowhere to be found he's vanished
05:17there's nobody at the Miami gallery people are telling me that it's closed and it's empty
05:22art has been stripped off the walls there's garbage on the floor and he's gone
05:30after the fine art partners lawsuit against Inigo hit and the first story dropped
05:35then it really opened the floodgates people contacting me to tell me about claims that they had
05:40geographic range of the claims was vast we were hearing from investors in Belgium Singapore Berlin of course and all around the US a lot in New York
05:50there was just a stream of claims and stories about being swindled
05:55the detail was incredible what they were alleging about what Inigo did on these various deals
06:01I know the word bombshell gets thrown around but it really was a bombshell
06:05the lawsuits kind of brought all of this into the public eye which was I mean absolutely fascinating
06:15there were a lot of documents that were suddenly available
06:18consignment agreements private emails
06:22this information is very tightly guarded in the art market because it's pretty opaque space
06:30and the biggest twist in the whole story as everybody's
06:34fighting each other and filing cross claims and lawsuits is that Inigo is nowhere to be found
06:39and he's left this trail of destruction in his wake
06:43so we arrived on this island on the other side of the world and then it suddenly did feel like god we're so far away it did feel like we'd like run away
06:54So we arrived on this island on the other side of the world, and then it suddenly did
07:03feel like, God, we're so far away, it did feel like we'd, like, run away.
07:09It was not as I'd imagined it.
07:14It was just a million miles away from anything that I'd ever seen or experienced in my life.
07:20Victoria is ultra aware of class and status and what's luxury and what isn't.
07:29And that first hotel we stayed in was as bad a package holiday experience as you could possibly
07:37hope to have.
07:39With the abattoir lighting and the sound of mosquitoes, I did have moments where I was
07:45like, I can't do this, like, this is so not my life.
07:51But then it was also like, okay, I guess it was the beginning of the end of the adventure,
07:56but then it was the beginning of a new adventure.
08:03When I first caught into this story about Inigo, it immediately grabbed my interest.
08:11You know, this idea of an alleged dark fraudster on the run and some people disappearing and
08:15all these big sums of money.
08:17So I was kind of hooked immediately.
08:20As a reporter, the first thing you try and do is say, well, okay, where is this guy?
08:26Because he disappeared too.
08:29So I started by visiting Inigo's former gallery, which is on Mount Street.
08:33The gallery was shut.
08:36I tried to track him down to his Miami space.
08:39So I ended up kind of calling up someone locally and saying, you know, can you go and check
08:43if anyone's there?
08:45And I think they said that when he left, the only thing he left was the food in the fridge.
08:51So then I started tracking down some of his ex-colleagues and saying, you know, hi, I'm
08:54a reporter.
08:56Rich people tend not to like journalists digging around in their interests.
08:59The rare time that they do is when they feel like they've gotten a grievance.
09:03You know, if they feel like they've been defrauded a lot of money, all of a sudden people
09:06are willing to tell you about that.
09:09I remember there was a great former colleague of his who described it as having eyes like
09:12a shark, that it was like dealing with a head fund manager rather than an art dealer.
09:17This guy was about money and making deals and he was tremendously good at it.
09:22But a lot of people started answering the door on the premise that they wanted to gossip.
09:25They wanted to know, OK, well, where is he?
09:27Do you know where he is?
09:31The art world loves gossip and it would be all over Instagram, you know, where people
09:35would sing that they spotted him.
09:38I heard he was in Japan and I heard he was in Australia and I heard he was in New Caledonia.
09:44Some people said that Victoria had a house in the Bahamas and that he was hiding out there
09:48and that it was scaring her family.
09:50I mean, I heard all range of possible locations.
09:54And this was not good for anyone Inigo had done business with.
09:58When I approached Jay Jopling to ask him, did he want to share anything about Inigo?
10:03He did say a couple of things about how sad and shocked he was that, you know, things turned
10:07out the way that they did.
10:08He had hired Inigo and thought he was like this, you know, very bright, promising young
10:12man.
10:13But he also said that he couldn't speak very much because he had also initiated his own
10:17high court proceedings to try to get some assets back.
10:21So then I looked into all the details about the lawsuit and I saw the name of this offshore
10:26account, O'Genie.
10:28O'Genie Limited was, in fact, Jay Jopling, something he had set up to back Inigo with the
10:34not-so-concealed name of Inigo backwards.
10:38The lawsuits just continued mounting.
10:40I couldn't even keep up with the lawsuits.
10:42They were just coming fast and furious.
10:57Once we kind of got into the swing of living supposedly on the run, it was not so bad after
11:02all.
11:04Neither of us had driving licenses.
11:06So we conned our way into getting a license.
11:10It was a very, like, clean, healthy way of living, especially in comparison to how we'd,
11:16like, lived at moments before.
11:19We were playing tennis.
11:21We were swimming.
11:22We adopted a dog, Bacchus.
11:27He was not this person who was anxiously pacing around on the phone all the time.
11:32He was a completely different Inigo.
11:34He was carefree.
11:37He was, like, at peace.
11:39It was like he was at peace.
11:40He wasn't having to worry anymore.
11:43I must have been a different person to not have the stress and anxiety that I'd been living
11:48under.
11:50I was relaxed in a way that I hadn't been in a long time.
11:52Which isn't to say I didn't think there'd be repercussions.
11:54Which isn't to say I thought I'd gotten away with something.
11:57At the same time, you know, not only had my life stopped, the whole world was in this strange
12:05bubble.
12:08The whole art world and the world goes into lockdown.
12:15It was a strange ending to this boom period, which started with the global financial crash,
12:23and Phil Bricks becoming an art dealer and ends with COVID, and then Phil Bricks doing a runner.
12:42During COVID, the height of COVID, everything looks great.
12:51We were on an island in a country which had absolutely nothing coming in and out.
12:57No one could chase him even if they wanted to, and Inigo was happy.
13:02The only person who was really questioning where Inigo was, the person stirring the pot trying
13:08to get a headline, was Kenny Schachter.
13:11Oh, stop.
13:13There was a time that I had gone to New York, and I had shared with Kenny what felt like really
13:20personal things, and they affected me much more than they affected him.
13:24And he had told me, you're like a son to me.
13:27I love you.
13:29And then went and written an article about me.
13:32I'm the disgraced art dealer.
13:34I'm the mini Madoff.
13:35Mini Madoff really irritates the tits off me.
13:40I would never have written this article in New York Magazine.
13:44Never would have even gone on record complaining about him, had it not been the fact that he took
13:50a chunk of money from some very close personal friends of mine, that I was kind of tangentially
13:56responsible for making the introduction.
13:59I was pissed off.
14:00I was hurt.
14:01It's interesting when you read his New York Magazine piece, one of the first paragraphs
14:07he says, I'll admit I made a lot of money with Inigo Philbrook.
14:10And Kenny made a lot of money from his relationship with me.
14:13I told the truth, and everything I wrote in my story called the mini Madoff, that was
14:21my lived experience.
14:22There was no speculation.
14:23I wasn't hyperbolizing, retelling.
14:25I wasn't doing anything other than recounting what happened.
14:28I was trying to kind of get a narrative of what actually happened.
14:44Every time you got into another artwork, it would turn out that there was just this web of lies.
14:50After the Stingal, Sacha Pesco then realized, oh, I have another deal with him, a multi-million dollar Jean-Michel Basquiat.
14:59Alexander Sacha Pesco is an avid art collector.
15:03Mr. Pesco looked to Mr. Philbrick, as any collector looks to his art advisor, for advice and counsel and opportunities.
15:13Summer of 2016, Mr. Philbrick proposes an opportunity to Mr. Pesco to invest in a work by Jean-Michel Basquiat titled Humidity.
15:24The Basquiat was a tremendous opportunity, not only because of the value, but also of the prestige of owning a work by this great artist.
15:34Very few people in the world can say that they own a Basquiat.
15:37It turns out, as with a lot of the other opportunities, it was all part of a massive fraud.
15:43Philbrick had sold Mr. Pesco on a number of lies relating to that deal.
15:48Philbrick told Mr. Pesco that he could acquire the work for $18.4 million.
15:53And as with prior deals, Mr. Pesco would put up half of the purchase price.
15:59But we knew Philbrick wasn't buying it for $18.4 million.
16:03He was actually getting it in a private sale from Philips for $12.5 million.
16:09To sell that lie, Philbrick forged documents.
16:13To create the appearance of legitimacy, he made up a contract.
16:16He even put into that contract the bank account information of a well-known New York law firm that works in the art space.
16:24They'll tell you they had nothing to do with that deal, knew nothing about this.
16:28It was all the product of this massive fraud.
16:41I continued to write about Indigo.
16:43And then all of a sudden, I got a DM from Steve Irwin.
16:49I got these DMs saying, don't be so hard, he's just a young guy.
16:53He made some mistakes.
16:55He lost his path, but he meant well.
16:58He never intended to do any wrong.
17:00I remember screaming to my wife, it's him, it's him.
17:02I was reading Kenny's madcap narrative of my contacting him under fake names, which I wasn't doing.
17:10Steve Irwin pets.
17:11But that wasn't the only one.
17:12There was a whole series of pseudonyms that I supposedly used.
17:16Were any of those pseudonyms you?
17:18No.
17:19Did you have any socially of interaction and chat to contact with Kenny?
17:23No.
17:24I had nothing to say to Kenny.
17:26Later that night, my phone rang at 2 o'clock in the morning when I was fast asleep.
17:30And it was one of my kids.
17:32And he said, I think I found Indigo.
17:35So how did your son tell you?
17:37He had a friend who has a friend.
17:39And they told me that he was going to the South Pacific.
17:44So when I was writing about Indigo, I illustrated it with my own art.
17:49I made a wanted poster from the FBI, Wanted Dead or Alive, The Return of Indigo Philbrick.
17:54I made this and sent it to him and said, send me my fucking money or I'm going to put this in Artnet.
17:58I wasn't really letting go because I was aggrieved.
18:05Kenny Schachter started posting on Instagram that he had heard from Indigo.
18:09And he started posting these pictures of these conversations with these kind of burner accounts claiming to know where he was.
18:15And he kind of turned it into this weird performance art piece.
18:19Where every day he had a hashtag and he would put up these pictures saying,
18:23Oh, you know, I know where Indigo is and chastising this mystery person.
18:26Why would an alleged art fraudster on the run be potentially jeopardising his location in the world to anyone trying to find him?
18:35It struck me as an incredibly unrealistic and if it was real, it was incredibly stupid.
18:40And if it wasn't real, then like what was really going on?
18:44Who was behind these mysterious accounts?
18:46It became very clear that I essentially couldn't trust anyone.
18:51All of a sudden, I start getting these messages out of the blue from these strange Instagram accounts,
18:56essentially giving me gossip about Indigo.
18:59They seemed incredibly aggrieved, talking about additional victims,
19:03the Saudis and like danger.
19:06And Indigo fled because he was in danger.
19:08He screwed the wrong people.
19:10Filbrick is scared, the mystery person wrote.
19:13Filbrick is obviously connected to Saudis.
19:16They the most desperate to get big pieces right away.
19:19So I'm like, first of all, who is this person?
19:21How do they know that they've angered the Saudis? What Saudis?
19:26As a journalist, like as a reporter on this beat, like there's tons of pressure to just find out
19:31who are the people behind all these LLCs and entities who Indigo defrauded.
19:38Indigo bought this infinity pumpkin installation by Kusama as an investment for FAB, the German investors.
19:46The same people who bought the Picasso portrait by Rudolf Stengel.
19:53One of the most famous artists in the world right now is this reclusive Japanese 80-year-old, Yayo Kusama.
19:59One of Kusama's best known and most coveted installations, artworks, are these infinity rooms.
20:10You stand in this infinite space surrounded by reflections of either lights or pumpkins.
20:17You could see your own reflection in this strange, kind of magical, hypnotic universe.
20:23And people love it. People wait for hours to get into those rooms.
20:29It's a huge, like, blockbuster, like, crowd-pleaser installation.
20:34It was lent for the exhibition at the museum in Miami, Institute of Contemporary Art.
20:41You go into the gallery, and on the wall there is text, and it says the artist's name, the work's name,
20:51and then a small print on the bottom.
20:53It says the work is courtesy of Indigo Feldberg and the Royal Commission for Al-Ula,
20:58which is a cultural arm of the Saudi government.
21:02How does the Royal Commission for Al-Ula own the same work that is owned by the German investors?
21:10It's the same work.
21:12As crazy as it sounds, Indigo must have sold the work, unbeknownst to the German investors, to the Saudis.
21:20One of, I think, the great enigmas of all this is how did Indigo think that he could sell an artwork to FAP
21:29and simultaneously or later sell it to the Saudi royal family?
21:34The reason I end up selling the pumpkin room to the Saudi people who actually lend it to the show in Miami
21:41is because I was under the impression that I could buy another one.
21:44So I thought I'd found a deal, kind of like perpetual motion, kind of like a gold mine,
21:49where the Germans and I owned this thing, and I could sell it for a really meaningful profit,
21:56keep that money, pocket it, use that money to buy the second one,
22:00and the Germans and I still are right where we started.
22:03Did the Germans now sell it to the Saudis?
22:05No.
22:06Philbrick essentially was taking out a home mortgage on somebody else's home, right?
22:13You can't do that.
22:14But he found it a very easy and convenient way to raise capital
22:18in the hopes that the next investment, the next sale, would help him pay off prior debts that he owed.
22:25And the reality was he was getting away with his fraud
22:28because he was having so much success selling these works at a great profit.
22:33One of Philbrick's many mistakes was to cross the path of one of the few police forces in the world
22:41who had the expertise to start looking into this.
22:44It was really evident that this was something that we had to look deeper into.
23:01A lot of people were purporting to have lost millions of dollars,
23:05so quickly our investigation took a very deep dive.
23:08It went from reviewing hundreds of thousands of documents
23:13to speaking to dozens of witnesses, victims, different persons in the industry
23:18to really figure out what was going on here with Mr. Philbrick.
23:21I think what was most surprising about this investigation was the complexity of the fraud.
23:26In a typical fraud scheme, I was expecting to see the same activity occurring with each and every problematic artwork,
23:34but Mr. Philbrick had fixed it in a way where he knew how to keep the trust in those clients.
23:40Like, he had a tailored point of view for the purpose of keeping their money and keeping their artwork
23:46while he was conducting other business activities related to the scheme with other clients.
23:52So, in the spring of 2020, Mr. Philbrick was charged in Southern District of New York
24:00on charges of wire fraud and identity theft, and it was our job to figure out where he was.
24:06There was information that he was in Europe. We had information that he may have been in Australia.
24:11Eventually, we were able to figure out that Mr. Philbrick was located in Vanuatu.
24:17Vanuatu was in a complete lockdown with nobody in or out.
24:22Our immediate reaction was, in the height of COVID, what are our next steps?
24:27How do we get him back to the U.S. so he can face these charges?
24:31So I kept on looking into their story, and every day there was just like more and more questions piling up.
24:44And all of a sudden, I start getting these really weird messages.
24:47Whoever can get to his GF slash X has got the key.
24:51If you want the truth, you've got to talk to the girlfriend.
24:54Inigo told me, don't speak to any press.
24:59And I was thinking, oh, it's really irritating.
25:01Because my name was being dragged through the mud in every article coming out about Inigo.
25:06I tried to contact Victoria through the traditional means, you know, contacting her publicist.
25:11And the way I actually got through to her was an Instagram DM.
25:14At first, she didn't want to talk, which is understandable.
25:19But as I started getting closer to the story and talking to different characters and talking to people like Kenny Schachter, then Victoria started to talk.
25:27I wrote back and forth to him, kind of behind Inigo's back.
25:32Well, the first thing I asked Victoria was, do you know where Inigo is?
25:35And she said, of course not.
25:36I just told him we weren't together anymore.
25:38She told me that they had gone to Australia, but then they'd split up and gone their separate ways and that she didn't know where he was.
25:45I did lie to him and say to him I wasn't with Inigo because I thought if I could create a distance between myself and Inigo in his eyes, that I'd be able to get more out of him.
25:57And he was someone who I thought maybe is going to write a story which is a bit more balanced than what Kenny had put out.
26:03What I didn't mention to Victoria, there were all these rumors swirling around that the feds are going to catch him.
26:10Vanuatu is full of these little Chinese shops, they call them.
26:27And they are shops that just sell odds and ends.
26:31The shop we were in was meant to have a really good green tea cheesecake, that's what we were looking for.
26:37We'd heard about a great green tea cheesecake.
26:47We came in here, we were just like pottering around, his face just went white.
26:53Like when I say white, it went white.
26:55And they were all standing there and from what I remember it was like bulletproof vests.
27:00They said, are you Inigo Philbrick?
27:03And he said, yes.
27:05And then suddenly more men came in with bulletproof vests on.
27:09They're like, you're coming with us.
27:10And I was like, I'm coming with him, I'm coming with him.
27:12They go, fine, you get into another car.
27:16So he's marched out into one car.
27:18I'm put into another car behind him.
27:20And I said, where are we going?
27:22And one of the men goes, we're going to the airport.
27:31The two cars pull in here.
27:34I was held back by two guys in the car and they didn't let me have access to either of the phones I had.
27:41And then he was marched over here and they wouldn't let me out of the car.
27:46And I just, at some point I just snapped.
27:48I said, get off me, get off me.
27:50I'm six months pregnant.
27:51And they suddenly were taken aback by me being pregnant.
27:56It was just awful.
27:58It was so bad.
28:00I got out of the car and I ran towards this gate.
28:04He was being marched with his hands behind his back onto this plane that was sitting there.
28:11I had no idea where he was going.
28:18I didn't know if these people were just wearing costume.
28:23I thought it was like an abduction.
28:24I thought, fuck, like, who has he got into bed with that he shouldn't have done?
28:30I didn't know who had sent this plane, whether it was Russians, whether it was Saudis, Mafia, like, I had no idea.
28:41He was just gone.
28:43I just thought, remember this tail number, remember the tail number.
28:46If I could remember the tail number, I can find out where they're taking him.
28:51I found out who the owner of the plane was.
28:54It was a Russian chess player.
28:56I managed to get hold of him and I said, your plane is abducted.
29:01My fiance, where is it going? Where is it going?
29:03And he said, I leased my plane out to the American government.
29:06So it's only when I see the U.S. Marshal type people that I realize that it's a government extradition and not some, you know, crazy revenge scheme.
29:20Were you scared?
29:22No, I, no, knowing what I know today, I should have been scared.
29:28If the U.S. government is willing to travel halfway around the world to the South Pacific at a time when no planes are allowed in or out of the country and land a plane there to get you, you know you're in serious trouble.
29:38On the day that the arrest was made, I remember I was sent this article within minutes of it going live.
29:50And, I mean, I was shocked.
29:53Arrested in his bathing suit, no less.
29:56It was just such a far cry from the person that I met, you know, this refined, polite, well-dressed, detail-oriented, laser-focused human being.
30:06I think I was at my desk at Goldsmiths when I saw a kind of flash news that I clicked through.
30:16Selfishly, my first thought was, oh, gosh, I hope they don't talk about Goldsmiths in this, because that's really not what we do.
30:25In German we have this great word, Schadenfreude, it means being happy for someone else's misery, which nails this on the head, I think, because this story was the biggest gossip of the year.
30:38These two, obviously, you see this glitzy glamour it couple, both beautiful, wealthy, incredibly well-dressed, great hair.
30:49And, obviously, you wish them nothing but misery.
30:52And you don't want them to be happy and wealthy and, you know, flying around the world. You want the opposite.
31:00The moment Inigo was arrested, I was panicking about lawyers searching high and low.
31:12I spoke to this guy, Peter Brill, and I thought, okay, he seems like he'll do, and so we sent him a retainer.
31:18We get this panicked call from Victoria. It was obviously a well-educated or upper-class British accent, someone who, obviously, not knowing anything about British reality TV, didn't know anything about her.
31:33And she is talking about how her fiancé boyfriend was essentially kidnapped, thrown on a plane, without due process, and leaving out what else was going on in their lives.
31:45I'm desperate to get some answers. How serious is this? What's going on? What's the timeline?
31:52They're going to take you on some crazy journey across the country to get you to New York.
31:56And this is probably going to take at least a month. And I'm like, it's going to take a what?
32:05So I land in Guam, and I get to the prison. I think I sit in Guam until the Friday.
32:12And then I fly to Honolulu, and I sit in a prison in Honolulu, waiting, waiting, and waiting.
32:21And then we get a flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles.
32:24And Los Angeles, we go to Las Vegas.
32:27None of it is pleasant. Landing at these weird airstrips, and people getting on, and people getting off, and everyone shackled, and you're shackled to the person next to you.
32:34And now you're shackled to the guy on the other side of you. And I've only been to Vegas once before. We'd flown private with a couple of DJ friends and their hangers on to go from a party in Miami to a party in Vegas.
32:46And the plane taxis into the little private air hangar. And I realize it's the same air hangar that we'd landed at when I flew in from Miami to Victoria.
32:58When I was writing about all of this, I made the following video of Inigo getting escorted off a rather large private plane.
33:05I'm holding up a sign in a chauffeur's uniform in a go. I don't think he'll find it terribly amusing.
33:21So I finally land in Brooklyn. And I had a really rough arrival to Brooklyn because I was on a busload of people that tested positive for COVID.
33:43And so we got left out on the bus for six or seven hours while they decided what to do with us.
33:49The guys are pissing on the floor of the bus, and we haven't eaten, and there's no water. It was really grim.
34:01I get to the prison, and that's the first moment where I'm like, wow, I'm about to go somewhere I've never imagined.
34:08And they throw us into solitary confinement for three weeks. No phone, no anything.
34:17I had absolutely no idea what was going on. So that was terrifying.
34:25This is a high-profile case with a high-profile defendant. What we wanted to do is work on bail.
34:31Wasn't going to be able to get bail until he actually saw a judge in New York.
34:35It was a significant amount of work, and it was very slow-going.
34:39We're in a situation now where Victoria is not getting the immediate result that she wants.
34:45She wants her boyfriend out of jail immediately.
34:48It was just a mess. And at that point, I realized that Peter Brill was not going to be the answer.
34:54I just think he didn't really know what he was doing.
34:57Wealthy people are demanding. Famous people are even more demanding.
35:05I think Victoria wanted immediate results, and when she didn't get immediate results, she hired a lawyer who had more news coverage, really.
35:14That's really what it amounted to.
35:15The only reason I'm doing this, there's only one reason, is that Indigo asked me to.
35:22When do you think this will be finished?
35:24I'm Jeffrey Lichtman, L-I-C-H-T-M-A-N. I'm a criminal defense lawyer in New York City for 33 years.
35:29I represented John Gotti Jr., I represented El Chapo Guzman, I represented Chapo's wife, Emma, and I represent all four of his children, the Chapitos.
35:42I represented CEOs of banks, doctors, lawyers, judges.
35:46Are you satisfied with the work that has to be done?
35:49I'm never satisfied with anything. Never.
35:53Jeff Lichtman is this kind of swaggering New York radio host of a lawyer.
35:59Jeff came swaggering into my life on a phone call,
36:03I'm your lawyer now, and you know, we're gonna get this sorted out, it doesn't seem like a big deal to me.
36:07And I'm like, okay, I like this guy, it doesn't seem like a big deal to me either, let's go.
36:11I expected to dislike him because the little that I could tell from him, he was a rich guy, accused of stealing from innocent people.
36:21There was an arrogance about him, certainly, that was described in the media.
36:25You know, his name is even pompous, let's be honest.
36:27So I expected him to be all that, and he wasn't.
36:31I've had much bigger fraud cases, but just the sheer brassiness of the fraud that Inigo did at such a young age, I thought it was interesting.
36:40And I thought that this would be somebody that I would like to try to dig out of a very deep hole that he had dug himself.
36:45He was very grown up about his circumstances.
36:49The MDC is one of the worst prisons in the country, it's ridiculously bad conditions.
36:55I've represented mafia killers, I've represented bosses of families that have gotten to the MDC, where Inigo was for years, and complained from day one.
37:05And Inigo, who's used to flying in private planes and limousines, never complained.
37:13Every other client that I had there complained non-stop.
37:15So, I'm outside the metropolitan detention center in Gokhan, overlooking this construction site, where Inigo said he could see me because he was somewhere around here.
37:29In prison, you either sink or you swim. You either follow the rules and figure out how to exist, how to live, or they will separate you from the herd and put you in a place that is even more restrictive.
37:44I was so lost, because this was a world where I had no fluency, and I had no experience that necessarily mattered, and I don't know how I fit in and how I'm supposed to survive in this environment.
37:55Being in prison, so often you would see the exact same kind of person you see in the art world.
38:04I'd be like, wow, he reminds me of the heir to this great French fortune, whatever it might be.
38:10And, you know, this is a guy who's selling mackerel sachets, three for a dollar.
38:15So, I just got an email from Inigo, saying that his visits have been banned for 90 days,
38:22because when I was leaving, we kissed and obviously used the COVID to announce the rules.
38:31But I guess it was worth it.
38:35From the very beginning, once I got through the evidence and saw how strong the case was, I felt that I was in trouble.
38:49With Inigo, they had emails, they had documents that showed that he had sold paintings to multiple people.
38:55There was really no defense to it.
38:57This was a very complicated scheme, if not the most complicated scheme that I've been investigating.
39:12It was confirmed that a lot of people had lost millions of dollars in trusting Mr. Philbrick with their investments.
39:19They were finding more fraud. They were finding, you know, more money that was stolen.
39:26It was a very simple Ponzi scheme.
39:27He was robbing Peter to pay Paul.
39:29This guy wanted his money back, well, he would take it from somebody else.
39:32And that's what it was.
39:36The case became an $86 million fraud case.
39:39The $86 million loss amount was calculated through looking through bank records and wire transfers
39:46and speaking to victims and other entities who were in contact with Mr. Philbrick.
39:52The statutory maximum in this case was probably, you know, 80 years or so.
39:57So I felt that we had to, from the start, do things that would enable us to get a lower sentence.
40:04I felt that we had to plead guilty of the case.
40:07Judge Sidney Stein asked me why I did it.
40:17And I'm about to answer the question and Jeff Lichman reaches for a piece of paper
40:21and writes on the table quickly, for the money.
40:24It feels like a kind of, on the one hand, glib and on the other hand, quite reductive answer to me.
40:30But this is my lawyer and he's very celebrated and he must know what we're doing.
40:34So I say, for the money, your honor.
40:37And that becomes the token of why I did all this.
40:41We all in the gallery were equally as taken aback by the judge who commented something along the lines of, is that it?
40:48Do you have anything else to say?
40:49Even there, having had all that time to reflect on what he'd done, that was the best he could come up with.
40:54Jeff Lichman tells me, don't worry, everything's going to be great, it's going to be fine, I'm going to come and see you.
41:01Jeff Lichman doesn't come and see me.
41:03Jeff Lichman finally comes to see me the day before sentencing.
41:07As in, the day before sentencing.
41:11He had told me that first time non-violent offenders always get a reduction on the guideline range.
41:17And that it worked in my favor that my victims were not vulnerable people.
41:22By the time sentencing came around, I'd been locked up since June of 2020.
41:40All of the predictions that I'd received at that point were that I was probably looking at maybe time served, maybe another six months, maybe another nine months.
41:49I vividly remember it was extremely hot in New York.
41:55And I remember approaching the building and thinking, wow, this building is really, really, really.
42:02It's got a very imposing and sort of scary feel to it.
42:07So I'm just on the way to the final day.
42:12Don't pop that, that's not on us.
42:15Oh, the Antigua's court date where we're going to find out what happens to him.
42:20And I'm hoping that it's all going to go well.
42:24But I'm terrified, like this is the second most important day of my life.
42:28So let's see what happens.
42:30Victoria was very, as you can imagine, she was very excited.
42:36This was, this was her, you know, this was her close up.
42:39So it was a big deal for her.
42:40And I gently reminded her that nobody in this entire hemisphere knew who she was.
42:47That this is not, shockingly, this was not about her.
42:51I was told about the sentencing and I rolled into the courthouse in the middle of the proceedings.
42:56There was a room full of his hardcore supporters.
43:00One side of the pew was Indigo's people.
43:03The other side were journalists.
43:05And at one point, Victoria got up to go to the bathroom and she sneered at me in such an unsettling, horrifying way.
43:11She scared me to the point that when the judge said, we'll take a break, I went running to the journalism, journalist side.
43:19I was scared that Victoria was going to lunge at me or something.
43:24I remember sitting in the courtroom and they brought him in.
43:28And he was in shackles and a brown jumpsuit, incredibly pale, almost unrecognizable, very sick, almost, jaundice.
43:40Indigo is paraded out, flanked by two of these air marshals.
43:45It's almost as though they're like walking Hannibal Lecter.
43:48And I see Victoria.
43:52And I see my parents are there.
43:55And I see my friend Simon Lyons is there.
43:57And I see that Kenny's there in his Adidas look.
44:01And I just think, what are you doing here?
44:03Then it's all starting.
44:06The second Jeff starts talking, I knew that I didn't have the legal representation that I thought I had.
44:13I have lengthy notes, 20 pages of notes that I write out beforehand.
44:24I got maybe one sentence into my comments before the judge jumped down my throat.
44:34I remember vividly the judge interrupting the presentation when they got to the argument about Philbrook's parents having divorced, where he said, a lot of people get divorced.
44:43They don't turn to crime.
44:45What I was talking about was the horrible childhood that Indigo had, where his father blew up the family.
44:54It was a tremendous psychological blow to Indigo.
44:57It was a silly, silly thing to say and it made the father very upset, I could see, because it was passing some of the responsibility over to him, which ultimately he was not responsible for.
45:11I felt very uncomfortable seeing what I saw.
45:16The judge's response was, and you're blaming that on selling more than 100% of various artwork to multiple individuals without their knowledge.
45:24That's because his parents divorced.
45:26And I said, no, things happen.
45:28You're not born bad.
45:30You know, something had happened.
45:31There was a catalyst that changed Indigo.
45:34Whatever sob story that Philbrook's team was trying to paint really didn't move me much at all, and it certainly didn't move the judge.
45:43I felt that the judge was not being fair enough.
45:47He was wealthy.
45:48He was white.
45:49He was privileged.
45:50He was educated.
45:51He had some funny accent and a funny name.
45:54So Indigo was required to be punished, to be beaten like a drum.
45:58Indigo was the last part of the sentencing before the sentencing decision is given by the judge.
46:06I had gotten, you know, frankly, my ass beaten for the last 45 minutes, and I felt that it was important that Indigo hit a home run now.
46:14And Jeff says to me, you're going to have to beg.
46:17He's pissed.
46:18You're going to get a really significant sentence.
46:20And I go, you know, what?
46:23You literally came to see me yesterday at the prison, and you said that you didn't think this was going to be so bad, and that you had a lot of mitigating factors to present.
46:31And now, all of a sudden, you want me to beg.
46:35Indigo had lengthy notes.
46:37It was like, you know, war and peace he had in front of him that he had written with all the things he wanted to say.
46:42And he was speaking in such a refined manner.
46:46It was ridiculous, frankly.
46:48I turned to him and said, listen, enough with these fucking notes.
46:53I want you to be raw, and I want you to tell him how you're really feeling.
46:57I said, I want to hear it from the heart.
47:00And that's what he did.
47:02I have a thing that I do before every sentencing, just as it starts.
47:17Within the first 30 seconds or so, listening to the judge's tone, I write on the back of my notes what I think the sentencing is going to be.
47:25And I'm right, this is creepy, I'm right 95% of the time, to the day, to the day, I'm right.
47:33Within a go, we were 30 seconds into it, and I wrote seven on the back of the paper.
47:42He was sentenced to seven years as a deterrent in the words of the judge.
47:47I had walked into that room thinking that I was probably six months, nine months, ten months to the door.
48:03How did you think?
48:05It was like a death.
48:06I picked Jeffrey Lichtman because he was a fucking salesman, that's why.
48:18And he said to me, I promise you, if you pick me, you won't ever regret it the day that your boy walks out.
48:25And it's like, you made me think Inigo was going to walk out then and there.
48:29I got shafted, I feel.
48:32Inigo got shafted.
48:35She wanted less time.
48:38Again, everybody wants less time.
48:40But as I tried to gently remind her, to get him out of this where he would spend roughly three or four years in prison for 86 million dollars was a pretty tremendous result.
48:52They bundled me out of that courtroom so quickly my head spun and I managed to blow a kiss to Victoria and then I was back in prison land.
49:07It was the worst day of my life, by far, to the point that when it was done and he was handcuffed and walked off and looking at seven years, I walked out of the courthouse and I just ran.
49:22And then I had cameras chasing me, paparazzi trying to chase me and I just thought my whole world has just come crashing down again.
49:37I was sent from MDC Brooklyn to the Correctional Institute, LSCI Allenwood.
49:50And because they are so overcrowded, they send me to the shoe.
49:54The shoe is the hole, is the box.
49:57You get to go to the shower three times a week and aside from those three showers, you will not leave that little room until you leave that little room.
50:07And I did 60-some days in the shoe waiting for bed space.
50:15This call is from a federal prison.
50:17It's from...
50:18Phil Fritt.
50:21Hey, my Fritt.
50:22I'm so happy to talk to you, Hopewell.
50:23I'm so happy to talk to you.
50:25Think you better hurry up and come back?
50:26Yeah, I know, I'm gonna do my best to it.
50:28We need four of you.
50:30Is it super depressing for me to come during Christmas?
50:34Or does it make it less depressing? I don't know.
50:36The whole thing is fucking depressing.
50:38The whole thing is fucking depressing.
50:40Write to me, write to me. I fucking adore you.
50:42Oh, I love you. Shit, we're gonna get off.
50:43I love you.
50:44Oh.
50:46You know, you could say he's a criminal, but like, who hasn't done something illegal?
50:50But when you play at such a high end of life, there are huge risks and gambles that people take and some get away with them.
50:59Since Inigo scandal broke, the worst assumptions and the worst fears about the art market, that people say, oh, the art market is so shady, you can't trust anyone, it's unregulated.
51:17Like, it's all true. Here it is.
51:20Here we are, years after his fraud was revealed and he was finally captured after going on the run, all of his victims, Mr. Pesco and others, they live with this on a daily basis, in large part because everything's still making its way through the court system.
51:36It's a total insane, like, cesspool of competing lawsuits right now because nobody knows who owns what.
51:45Inigo's story is a tale of greed and of arrogance.
51:50The big question is where is all the money and where is all the artwork?
51:55Are there vast stores of art sitting in a warehouse somewhere that we don't know about? And I wonder where a lot of the money is stashed.
52:03Do you have any money? No.
52:06What the fuck on earth? How could anyone spend $86.7 million?
52:11Where is it?
52:13What the fuck are you asking me for? I have no idea. I don't know.
52:17To vilify a person for their transgressive antics in the art world is just simply blaming one person for the crimes of the many.
52:25It must send a shiver down the backs of every other collector and gallerist because they know that by one degree of separation they're doing the same thing.
52:32Well, it's just not true. For every bad actor like Philbrick there's thousands of good actors in the art world. The art world gets a bad rap for being dirty and a lot of the high profile matters that everybody reads about are the worst of the worst and Philbrick's an example of that.
52:46Philbrick as a story probably couldn't have happened at any other point.
52:56It was an extraordinary decade. Money was fast, money was loose, money was cheap.
53:00Oh my god, this is him.
53:21Oh! Oh my god, this is him!
53:27Here he goes, here! Oh, baby, who's that?
53:29This is Daffy!
53:30Huh?
53:31Oh!
53:32Mwah!
53:33Mwah!
53:34Mwah!
53:35Mwah!
53:36Mwah!
53:37How are you, baby girl?
53:39Please!
53:40A little hug?
53:41Aww!
53:42Aww!
53:43What is the future hold?
53:45That's the question. What does the future hold?
53:50Ready?
53:51I want to say my mum and dad days.
53:54The ambition is to get back to doing what I was doing. I was a great art dealer. And I hope to be able to earn that seat at the table back.
54:04Could you trust him again?
54:07I'm not looking to, no. I mean, I just wouldn't want to. I won't give him a second chance until I know that he's willing to change and be a better person and take responsibility.
54:21You can't just jump back into art dealing without, like, the government ostensibly grabbing him and saying, like, no, pay back the $86 million you owe first, right? That's part of restitution.
54:31I have no idea what Philbrick thinks he could do, but I would touch him with a 10-foot pole.
54:37Would I do business with him? Not in a hurry. But there is no mechanism in the art world for banning him from participating.
54:50If he paid his bills, I think the art world would be forgiving. The art world, and by extension capital, has an infinite capacity to forgive.
54:58I'm obviously in no position to do anything other than say how sorry I am. But there is a small part of me that thinks, what about all the good deals?
55:06What about all the good deals?
55:36What about all the good deals?
55:37What about all the good deals?
55:38What about all the good deals?
55:39What about all the good deals?
55:40What about all the good deals?
55:41What about all the good deals?
55:42What about all the good deals?
55:43What about all the good deals?
55:44What about all the good deals?
55:45What about all the good deals?
55:46What about all the good deals?
55:47What about all the good deals?
55:48What about all the good deals?
55:49What about all the good deals?
55:50What about all the good deals?
55:51What about all the good deals?
55:52What about all the good deals?
55:53What about all the good deals?
55:54What about all the good deals?
55:55What about all the good deals?
55:56What about all the good deals?
55:57What about all the good deals?
55:59What about all the good deals?
56:00What about all the good deals?