The program will repeat at 1AM ET the same night.
FOR TV HIGHLIGHTS CONSIDERATION:
Season six episodes of CNBC’s “American Greed” will air Wednesdays at 10PM and repeat at 1AM ET the same night. The previous week’s episode will re-air Wednesdays at 9PM and repeat at 12AM ET the same night.
Wednesday, March 14th – “American Greed†Episode 57 – Fine Arts Treasure Gallery: Fine Art: A Portrait of Fraud:
Every Friday and Saturday night, DirecTV and Dish Network viewers all over the country were able to tune in to the Fine Art Treasures Gallery live auction show, looking for a chance to hit it big in the world of fine art. With items by artists such as Picasso, Dali, and Chagall selling for thousands less than their retail values, it’s no wonder that this show had developed quite a following during its run. Each episode presents a fortune’s worth of original paintings, authenticated lithographs, and signed works from all over the world. Viewers are given a chance to call in for a chance to purchase each item by naming their own price. The thrill of snagging up one of these pieces for much less than their value is exciting even for amateur art collectors; not to mention, a great investment for the future – almost too good to be true… and as investigators came to discover, there wasn’t much truth to these treasures.
Kristine Eubanks, her husband Gerald Sullivan, and auctioneer James Mobley were convicted of operating the auction show that, in the end, bilked buyers out of more than $20 million. The original works they were selling turned out to be fakes. The signed copies of Picasso and Dali paintings were forgeries. The authenticated lithographs were usually cheap reprints made in Eubanks own printing shop. Even the certificates of authenticity supplied to buyers were nothing more than fabricated documents with false appraisals. Time and time again, the gallery presented knock-off pieces of art work that were a far cry from the “original†or “authentic†piece that they claimed to have. The gallery was also involved in taking advantage of local artists – reprinting their works and selling them behind the artists back; a process that not only hurt the artists financially, but could have potentially ruined their careers.
When a few people began to complain about the potentially unoriginal artwork they had received, it caught the attention of the FBI and the LAPD Art Theft Detail – only because Kristine Eubanks was too greedy to refund a few disgruntled buyers. What investigators discovered was a very large-scale, very overt scam, that ripped off well over 10,000 people to the tune of $20 million… The only thing seemingly authentic of the Fine Art Treasures Gallery was their passion for greed.