A Mayfair art dealer faces trial in the United States after losing his extradition battle over allegations that he stole $10 million of masterpieces by artists including Pablo Picasso, Henry Moore and Marc Chagall from wealthy clients.
Timothy Sammons, 61, a former director of Sotheby’s in New York, is accused of selling valuable artwork for four women, but never giving them the money. He faces 14 US charges of grand larceny and one of scheming to defraud. The maximum sentence for grand larceny is 25 years.
The criminal indictment follows years of civil proceedings in the High Court and US courts as his clients attempted to recover their money.
Mr Sammons was declared bankrupt in January, had his passport confiscated and his £4 million home in Primrose Hill, north London, repossessed after he defaulted on loans. Contesting the US attempt to extradite him, Mr Sammons claimed that his right to a family life would be severely disrupted under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act because of the financial and emotional support he gave his family.
His lawyer, Aaron Watkins, told the court: “I accept this is potentially in excess of a $10 million US fraud.”
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Mr Sammons, a trained solicitor, set up his own fine art agency in 1995 after running the Sotheby’s Chinese art department. He brokered the sale of John Singer Sargent’s painting Cashmere to the Bill Gates Foundation for a record £6.7 million in 1996.
He told the court that contracts with clients were not “specific” over when they had to be paid by and added that there had never been a criminal investigation into himself or his businesses in the UK. District Judge Mike Snow dismissed the arguments against extradition. He said: “The seriousness of the allegations and the public interest in honouring this country’s international obligations satisfies me that . . . extradition is not incompatible with their Article 8 rights.
Mr Sammons has 14 days to appeal before the home secretary decides whether to extradite him.