Weho Art Dealer Found Guilty in Fake Picasso Sale

A West Hollywood art and antiques dealer was found guilty Monday of witness tampering and lying to the FBI over the sale of a fake Pablo Picasso painting.

Tatiana Khan was ordered to serve five years of probation, including 2,500 hours of community service.

The 70-year-old Khan, who owns the Chateau Allegre gallery on La Cienega Boulevard, has agreed to reimburse the buyer of the fake Picasso and to give the federal government a valuable painting by Willem de Kooning to help settle her debt, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

In pleading guilty in May, Khan admitted that she paid an art restorer $1,000 to re-create a work by Picasso—a 1902 pastel called La Femme Au Chapeau Bleu (The Woman in the Blue Hat).

Khan then sold the fake Picasso painting for $2 million and told the buyer that the price was low because the painting had come from the Malcolm Forbes family, which wanted to keep the sale private, according to Khan.

According to the plea deal, Khan admitted lying to an FBI agent when she said she had obtained the drawing from an acquaintance.

Prosecutors said Khan also admitted that she told the art restorer to lie to the FBI and tell agents that she did only restoration work for Khan, not any copying work. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ranee A. Katzenstein said Khan forfeited a de Kooning painting worth about $200,000 that she bought with some of the proceeds of her fraud.