MIAMI– A South Florida art dealer has been sentenced to nearly four years in federal prison for a scheme involving the sale of fake Andy Warhol artwork.
Leslie Howard Roberts, 63, was sentenced this month in Miami federal court to three years and 10 months after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He also must repay nearly $2.6 million he earned through the scheme.
Roberts, owner of the Miami Fine Art Gallery in Coconut Grove, was arrested in April 2025. According to court records, he fraudulently represented art as original pieces created by famed artist Andy Warhol. Prosecutors said Roberts falsely claimed to have acquired the artwork directly from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and provided false and fraudulent invoices.
“He exploited the trust that collectors place in art dealers and the authenticity of the works they purchase,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason Reding Quiñones said in a statement.
As part of the conspiracy, Carlos Rodriguez Melendez posed as an employee of a New York-based auction company and falsely authenticated a work of art to conceal that it was counterfeit, investigators said. Rodriguez Melendez pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud last year and was sentenced to probation.
Another South Florida art dealer was sentenced in 2023 to two years and three months in federal prison for selling fake Warhols. Daniel Elie Bouaziz, owner of two galleries in Palm Beach County, had pleaded guilty to a single count of money laundering, while prosecutors agreed to drop 16 other counts related to fraud and embezzlement.
Warhol was an American visual artist and filmmaker associated with the pop art movement of the 1960s.
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