Inigo Philbrick, Art Dealer Who Received a Seven-Year Prison Sentence for Fraud, Is Released Early

Inigo Philbrick, the New York dealer who was later sentenced to seven years in prison for a $86 million wire fraud scheme, has been released. He was sentenced in May 2022, making his prison stay a little less than four years—more than three years less than he was initially expected to serve.

His release was initially reported on March 1 by the Daily Mail, which cited a source at the Federal Bureau of Prisons; a Vanity Fair article published later that month reported that he had been released to home confinement and would serve two years of supervised release. Philbrick’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, confirmed his release in a statement to the Art Newspaper.

The highly publicized legal saga of Philbrick began in 2019, when accusations surfaced that he had swindled market figures while making deals involving artworks worth millions of dollars. 

A year later, he was detained by US authorities on the island of Vanuatu for allegedly defrauding dealers, investors, and collectors out of vast sums of money. In November 2021, the young dealer pleaded guilty to wire fraud in a New York court; he was also indicted on identity theft charges. 

Philbrick was once considered to be a rising star in the international art market, with mentors including Jay Jopling at White Cube gallery in London. His fall rattled art elite in New York and beyond. At the time of his initial arrest, he was operating a now defunct gallery in Miami; Jopling had provided its seed money.

US authorities accused Philbrick of faking documents to conduct his transactions, allegedly even listing a “stolen identity as the seller” on a contract on one occasion. Investigators have also said he sold works without first telling those who owned them. Among the artists drawn into his scheme was Yayoi Kusama, whose prized “Infinity Room” installation, from the eponymous series, was allegedly withheld by Philbrick from a German art firm. 

At the time of his sentencing, a representative for the US government told the court that authorities had received 16 restitution requests for works that Philbrick had withheld, a number they expected to grow.

“Inigo Philbrick grew his purportedly successful art business by collateralizing and reselling fractional shares in high dollar contemporary art,” US attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “Unfortunately, his success was built on brazen lies, including concealed ownership interests, fake documents, and even an invented art collector.”