A Pennsylvania man accused of passing off forgeries as original works by famous artists—including Francis Bacon, Keith Haring, Jean Cocteau, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Pablo Picasso and Jean-Michel Basquiat, among others—has pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of mail fraud.
Carter Reese of Reading, a city northwest of Philadelphia, admitted to misleading customers about the provenance and authenticity of art that he sold or attempted to sell between February 2019 and March 2021. Reese, who is 77, faces up to 40 years in prison. His sentencing is set for 12 September, according to the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Reese, a prolific antiques collector and former next-door neighbor of superstar musician Taylor Swift, was previously an employee of the prestigious Hill School in nearby Pottstown, first as a fine arts and history teacher and later as director of admissions, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. He and his wife co-founded and then sold an international company that helped students gain entry to elite boarding schools and colleges. In court documents, Reese described his collection of toys, furniture, rugs and model trains as being worth $6m.
Reese claimed that the forgeries he sold were sourced either from the artists themselves or from other art collectors, one of whom had died in 2013 and one of whom was purportedly named Ken James. In fact, "Ken James" was an alias for Reese’s supplier, a Chicago-based man who had been convicted of selling more than $1m of counterfeit art, sometimes by buying copies on eBay and doctoring them to look genuine. That supplier, identified only as "Associate 1" in the district attorney's case against Reese, died around November 2021.
Reese lured customers with false affidavits and signatures to mask the inauthenticity of the works he was offering. His lawyer, Jason Hernandez, told the Inquirer that his client “intends to make a full restitution to the victims”, which could amount to a forfeiture of more than $186,000.
Reese has also been a supposed victim of counterfeit grifting in his time as a collector. According to the Inquirer, he filed for bankruptcy in 2019 after claiming he had been ripped off as he tried to offload some of his antiques. He accused the auction house Pook & Pook of intentionally depressing the value of his items through purposeful mishandling, shabby presentation and highlighting a counterfeit toy Reese had bought for $20,000, believing it was genuine.
