Tony Tetro: The Art Forger's Forger

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Zaren Elizabeth, what's up? How you doing? Girl?

Good? You know it's ridiculous?

Ah, yes, do I You ever heard of Betty Penrose? No, she was a secretary. Her boss was a lawyer in Oakland, Okay, in her hometown. He filed a lawsuit on behalf of his secretary. And that's how Betty Penrose sued God. Why God, Elizabeth? Because God had struck her house with lightning nine years earlier, and so Betty Penrose sued God for quote negligence. She filed her lawsuit in a California court, even though the lightning strike had occurred in Arizona.

I was gonna say, we don't have a lot of lightning strikes.

Exactly why California? Well, why a California court in particular, in particular, Elizabeth, nineteen sixty nine, Sonoma County? Why there? Why in the middle of your peak California? Great question, Elizabeth, this woman, why would she sue God? Well in California? No? Less? Well? These important possibly, I'll tell you this much. Two words answer our question? What two words? Lou Gottlieb. If you don't know Lou Gottlieb. He was a former singer and

I was wondering, like, how would God pay the property taxes? So many method just like manna from heaven.

Yeah, and also the whole idea that like if you are the you know, totally omniscient and all powerful, then you've already taken possession of the land, right you don't really have to exquest him that it makes sense the ridiculous, very ridiculous.

I like that.

Thank you.

You want to know what else is ridiculous? I'm here for it, Secret Rooms.

What this is?

Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. I heard that I have for you today, sir. Another one of my top shelf cutis it's an art crime and a forgery. Hello man alive. I love these I love art. I'm a terrible artist. My only medium is words. Really, yeah, I can't draw or paint to save my life.

Can you dance? No?

I'm fascinated by those who can draw and paint.

And even more people, Oh you're not me, so go on.

So what I find even more fascinating is when someone who has a great skill doesn't use it to create their own work. That fascinates me. We've talked about that before, artists versus draftsman.

Basically, oh yes, okay, the artist artisan? Yeah yeah.

So you can't call yourself an artist if you require direction to create something. That's my hot take, unpopular opinion. But oh how I love these forgers. I love their wily ways, but they break my heart by misusing all that talent. Okay, anyway, let me give you a quote from today's cat Please. Forgery was fun, like a challenging puzzle or riddle to solve. I love figuring out intriguing

Yeah? I mean act totally relate. You make your work entertaining to you. Yeah, it's not the work that's entertaining.

So who is this guy?

Who is this guy?

Elizabeth Anthony gen Tetro, Anthony gen Tetra, Tony Tetro, Tony Tetro.

Good. Yeah, that's a great one, right.

He's a serious character. He was born in nineteen fifty in Fulton, New York, to Beatrice and James Tetro.

Also haven't heard of them? Run a three to three.

Exactly, James House painter like you, I'm into that developed a special process for coating water towers. Innovator. Beatrice's claim to fame was that when she was a little girl, she saw Amelia Earhart land her plane on the family pasture.

Oh dope, that's pretty cool.

These are like good, honest folk who have like cool little.

Things living Americana.

And they created a wild child.

Yeah.

So Tetro he was an ultra boy. Were you an ultra boy? No?

No, I always resisted all of my Catholic indoctrinations. So like I mean not like, I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but like a lot of my friends, like best friends, are ultra boys, like you should do it to be fun. I'm like, are you kidding me? I already have to get up into a paper route. I'm not doing this. So no, I was not an alto.

So Tetro ultra boy is a good kid. But like most altar boys, he had a mischievous streak. That's just a tree that is. He had no formal art training. All of his skills were innate or self taught. When he was in elementary school, he made his first piece of art. Quote, I drew a picture of one of the nuns. Sister Antonio I did this beautiful Vargas picture of her, but pruney faced and in a habit. She whacked me and took me to the priest.

He chuckled, Wait a var like a Vargas girl. So he did her like a pin up with a prony face.

That's yeah, so who is he? Let's stell, let's deal further. According to Ira Reiner, an LA district attorney, Tetro was quote the single largest forger of artworks in America.

Really yeah, I don't think I've ever heard of it.

And according to Gary Helton, the district attorney's investigator, quote, I consider mister Tetro to be one of the two major art forgers in the United States. It's like he gets first and then he gets a tie for first.

He's like I would put an Asterix steroid era forgers came to come in.

Tom Binder, president of Tom Binder Fine Arts in Venice, California.

Tom Binder Fine Arts.

Maybe it's Bender whatever, you know who cares.

Got a binder full of benders.

He said, quote, but you know what the bottom.

Line is the bottom blind guy.

Was just a brilliant mind that went astray. A Frankenstein. All I know is that guy's a genius.

So he actually used Frankenstein correctly. He made it the doctor Frankenstein mad. You know, he went mad, not the monster.

Exact way to buy that one bender so good. How did he get there? How did Tony get there? When he was sixteen, he married his pregnant high school girlfriend. He was a father at seventeen. He moved to California at nineteen, and then he was divorced by twenty three.

Really Russian life.

So he just moved five years exactly and then took his show over to the West coast and there you go. So he began studying art on his own. He went to museums all the time, like practiced. He experimented with paints and formal the for a baking process so that he could create krakolure.

That's a really cool pattern. You have to do that a blaze. You put down one glaze and you put another on top of it. As it dries, it separates.

Yeah, and it makes it look old and it creates.

It literally cracks like old desert earth. Right.

So Tetro he was working at the Broadway Department store in the furniture department. Oh and one day, he picked up a book. I know, right, isn't that come on department? Oh he picked up a book Sarin.

Oh strong man, Okay, showing up.

Well, you know what book that was.

It was the book take a Guess how to win friends and influence people.

Close Fake by Clifford or You're bron Elmirdhoy Biography.

I would not have guessed that he read.

He picks that up, he reads it. This is how he described it. Quote. When I read that book, that was really the beginning of this for me. The more I read, the more I said to myself, I could do this.

I think Elma would be so tickled by that.

Isn't that the greatest? It's like an instruction menial for him.

Full anarchist manifesto for art for Yeah.

Here's what Tetro said about Dhore quote. I saw his paintings. He was in Los Angeles. I went to the galleries, talked to people who knew him. He was here in Los Angeles and sold a lot of paintings to celebrities and he signed them horri I think he was really good in creating fake art. I was impressed by him. So this is like he's got this mentor, and like an unassuming mentor. So so Tetro he began making reproductions

He wanted to do a copy of a forged.

We talked about that with elmird Hori. Tetro copied a Dhoy copy of Chagall.

So somebody wanted to They wanted their own Dehoy or so I wanted their own horri version of Chagall, And they were like, hey, Tetro, can you do that? Correct?

So Tetro he brings the piece to try and sell it at a gallery and Vincent Price happened to be there at the time. Yeah, no price art connoisseurtion. Yeah, he knew his.

Stuff, really great art.

So he sees Tetro's piece and he says, I don't like him pointing at Elmuir's name, and I don't like him pointing to Shagall's name. So he's just like, get.

This out of here. Here.

Here's a fun fact. Did you know that if someone sends a Chagall painting to be authenticated by the Committee Chagall, it'll be destroyed under French law if it's determined to be fake.

So I did not fair warning.

Now, you know, back to Tetro undeterred, undeterred by all the insults from Vincent Price.

So there's no appealing in that process.

No, they're just like toss it in the fire, speak to the dust. So Tetro starts selling his pieces at art fairs, and he was up front that these were copies. But what he found is that people cared more about the art matching their decor than they did having some sort of like authentic piece.

So they just want the effect, the feel.

Yeah, this is why he put it. I would do a Rembrandt or a Renoir, and I only earned a few hundred dollars for it. I sold only a few paintings, maybe twenty I sold. Nobody wanted a Rembrandt because I figured if you put a rem brand over your fireplace, somebody's gonna think it's a print. I sold them for about three hundred dollars in an Aaron Brothers frame, although I didn't sell many, which is like a good point, you know, like if you're just living in like a

The vasculinity of that jut out.

So then, Tetro, it's like.

The author photos. Just take one of the forties. You'll never see a updated.

Tetro sold a Modigliani drawing for sixteen hundred dollars at an auction house in Santa Anna, but he got caught.

Okay.

Tetro was asked if it was known by everyone at the gallery that the Modigliani was fake, and this is how he said it, and this is I love quoting him because it's so meandering and bizarre. Okay, so here it is. Quote, oh no, I showed it to another guy. Before that, and I told him that I did it. He was having an affair with Jack Warner's mistress, Jack Warner of Warner Brothers, and she left a diamond ring at the auction house that Jack Warner had given her.

Now.

This guy was a thief, this guy at the auction house, and she never got a dime. This was worth at least a quarter of a million dollars, this ring. And that's how he did everything. He would tell an old lady who'd bring in a Tiffany lamp, oh, here's one hundred dollars. I'll give you the rest. The lamp would be worth ten thousand dollars, but she'd never see another penny. That's how he did things, and he got away with it. I didn't know any of this. When I walked into

He's like an eight year old telling his story. We know, I was supposed to go to the partment. I went to the part you know Billy's his father got divorced, and that his new mom was over there. But she told me it was a cold, so we went to McDonald's.

But then he yes or no, she just like was fake.

Okay, let me talk by Jack Warner's mistress. All right, First and foremost, I can't answer this question until we get down to.

He says, I painted for him so we wouldn't break my hands. I did a lot of Robert Wood paintings for him. Most people don't even know who Robert Wood was. Uh, not Robert Woods, the Houston, Texas Texans wide receiver Robert Wood.

Now, but Robert Woods Johnson, the MPR donor.

He was an American landscape painter. So the Palm Springs auction house owner had him make about thirty Robert Wood knockoffs over a period of about two years under the threat of I'll break your hands, and the guy also had him sit in on auctions as a shill to drive the price up.

Of course, yeah good.

So Tetro. He learned that the copies of Originals were quote very marketable, and I was told that a lot of these paintings were going to be sold as excellent copies for people who couldn't afford Originals. Many people hang reproductions in their homes and try to pass them off as reel to their friends. It's snob appeal, which is in the United States probably the number one reason people by art who at the end, so he's like taking it down or not. She's not doing rembrands, but he's

Why don't I know the name ecclestone.

Well, she legitimately, as an aside, has that plastic surgery face like no cap God bless. That looks like a new kind of species.

Given the Santa Monica.

Clips the cheeks. Yeah it's wild, so Ecclestone. She was born in London in nineteen eighty eight. She's the daughter of model Slavica Raditch and English Formula one billionaire Bernie ecclestone. That's how you know. So Petra and James they bought the Aaron Spelling mansion in La.

Oh with a gift wrapper.

I was gonna say, that's the one with candy spellings gift wrapping.

How do we all remember that?

All I remember?

I couldn't tell you anything about that house but other than it has a gift wrapping exctly.

So what did James Stunt do for a living? He was a gold bullion dealer, that's not hanky, and he got he got all that like plastic surgery thing going on to but his has that like slightly like melting silly putty thing going God bless. I wish him the best, godless, except not really. Because Stunt the gold bullion dealer. He was one of a defendants in the biggest money laundering

Elements because is always on. Yeah, so that you know right away.

Yeah, So Stunt gets indicted. He puts his Tony Tetro fakes into the collection of Prince now King Charles and led him to believe He led the now King to believe that they were authentic, and then he turned around and he used those paintings as collateral to get a massive loan.

So he duped the sitting head of the UK, like correct, the King Charles, that cat that guy and then use that to finance a massive loan.

Right, and Tony Tetro makes it really clear that he wasn't aware of any of this stuff.

I didn't know.

So a portrait painted by Tetro. Would you usually sell for like five k?

Dude? The pairs on these people.

I know, a reproduction of a Shagall, for example, would be like two thousand, okay, and a small watercolor would go for like three hundred bucks.

I do think his time would be worth more.

Tetro said, for three hundred For that, you get a Yamagatta, and he's talking about hero Yamagatta. Japanese artists based in La does like really vivid beautiful. So Tetro's forgery business expanded. This is how he said quote. As time passed, I became better, but I got so much more work that I hired four people to work in the studio.

I was just about to ask.

Each of us had a different palette. We did parts of the painting, each with his own part, and it worked out well. We did ninety five paintings big old Masters for a Texas billionaire. It took five or six years. But now I have a new customer, a friend of his, another billionaire, and that's why I was working today the whole day.

So he became like the Candy Wiley or the Picassos, like I've got my.

Studio turn these out let's take a break. When we come back, we'll see what forgeries old Tony had cooking out zarin.

Yes.

Hello. When we left off, Tony Tetro was churning out fake masters, selling them to random millionaires and billionaires and auction houses.

Fast as a butter maker makes butter.

Exactly. I want to go to these Texas billionaires houses and find out if they've got that. You know, First of all, I really don't.

I was just about to say, you said that sentence. But anyway, you are a bunch of SAPs, So I would want to see if I wouldn't want.

To see, like where the how they brag about it and what anyway, So one of the auction houses that he sold to was in Sherman Oaks, California, and it was owned by Marc Henry Sowiki. March of eighty nine, Siwiki gets charged with ten counts of grand theft and art forgery. We a whack bubba ba busted. He made a plea bargain in exchange for three years probation, a thousand hours of community service, and seventy eight thousand dollars in restitution. Siwiki agreed to wear a wire in an

Shagall dropped and all of a sudden, I was like, whoa, I'm daddy about to make money.

So siwiki, he testified that he saw Tetro practicing the signatures of the original artists on scrap paper and notepads and then like on the backs of damaged artwork.

But he doesn't do that. I mean my dark chest Brock is work.

So siwiki. He told authorities that he did about one hundred thousand dollars of business with Tetro between eighty four and eighty nine. He sold hundreds of works by Tetro passed off his Ali Mirro Yamagatta. So he's just churning.

Smart market though.

Yeah. Well, as a result of this recording, though, Tetro's condo was raided by county investigators. He was arrested and charged with thirty eight felony counts of forging lithographs of paintings by Mark Schagal Mirro Rockwell.

He's doing Norman Rockwells singer rock Well.

Someone was watching him, twenty nine counts of forging Hero Yamagata. Remember Gary Helton, the La County District Attorney's investigators. Yeah, a little call back. He conducted a sixteen person raid on the condo. Tetro's lithographs and paintings were loaded into one van and a steakbed truck, just like there were so many this like this condo was like three levels.

When you said steakbed truck for a moment, because it was you saying it, I had to picture a truck with a bed that was a stake.

With a giant curtains, the wooden fence.

Did you pull out No, total.

That the truck of the bed at the bed of the truck. But it's a cartoon stake.

Cartoons steak. There was a cartoon wolf looking at it like I'm gonna.

Eat Yeah, So yeah, they just throw it. They threw it on a comically large cartoon steak. Helton said he found Tetro's pieces on display at the Carol Lawrence Galleries in Beverly Hills, Studio forty seven in New York, and at galleries in Japan. So he's like, I have scoured the earth during the raid Cleveland. Some of Tetro's Yamagotta pieces were overlooked, weren't h Tetro turned around and sold those to old friends, including Ken Kettner, a mortgage bank.

Just sounds like that guy's a liar.

I have a lot of fun with it.

I'm sorry, fun with it. I just lay down on my bed. I cover myself with them on paintings.

Giggles. Why were some of the pieces overlooked? You're wondering, Well.

Were some of the pieces over Let me refer to I'm wondering.

Let me refer you to one of your favorite Reddit posts.

Oh of course, please the one where the.

Person is living with their girlfriend in a house that the girlfriend owns, and they find out the girlfriend has a secret room.

Actually my.

Secret room, living together for three years. Didn't know about the secret room.

How I love it?

I know you do well.

That in the beans and these are my favorites. So you ask, is it my birthday?

I want you to picture it? You are an official Tony Tetro copy of a Salvador Dolli piece. You've been in this dark, secret room in Tetro's house for a while. You normally hear laughter and funky disco music coming through the walls. Not lately. The other day you heard a terrible racket, a bunch of heavy footsteps, drawers being opened and slammed, piles of stuff being pushed off a desk to the ground, breaking glass, wallpaper being torn from the walls.

I missed you daddy.

There it is uh, you go unheard. But as you as you get tossed into a truck and you peel out into the cool night, you know you are safe. Yama Goatta thought Tetro's copies weren't that bad quote. I just don't know why he doesn't establish his own way. Having talent to paint in general is one thing, but artists must also have a passion for creation before painting exists. I paint a very tranquil image. It represents my feelings, my senses, my memories, and you can't just copy those.

As a copy I have to dig it.

So according to Tetro quote, I enjoyed doing a renoir and using his pastel colors, learning how he would fuse everything around the subject until everything was blurred except the subject's face. Then he'd put a splash of color over here, and I'd understand why he did it. I didn't understand why he did it just by looking at it. I never really had a tremendous desire to be a famous artist, but I enjoyed painting and I enjoyed copying. Yeah, there it is.

I mean, you can't really argue with his logic. Look, I didn't want to be at the top of the mountain. I just like walking.

He didn't like being called a forger though, Well, yeah, he said quote forgery indicates an intent to defraud. And I never sold anything as real. I prefer the term reproductions. In my definition, an exact copy as close to original as you can do. Every one of my friends knew what I did. You know, what do you do for a living? I copy masters. I even had business cards which said Anthony tetro Art reproductions. I sold them as reproductions or emulations done by me. I was very specific about it.

I don't believe that.

I don't need that.

I'm like, okay, so your friends know this. Do your clients notice the ones who are paying the money. I understand that you got word around.

It could be discovered in the Grand tradition.

Are you lying by a mission? Sirs?

Question of all of our rude rude criminals on this show.

He wrote a memoir, of course, the most literate group in the world, by.

The way, and of course it's called con Slash Artist, The Life and Crimes of the World's Greatest Art Forger. Now, this man just said he's not a forger, but he titled his.

Right.

It was co written by gi Imperio Ambrosi, which is a great name.

Totally, I'm all about that. I come across Jimpero.

Ambrosi said, quote, you always think of the forger duping the client, but in this case the client was the dealer, and the dealer would commission him to do it. They just say, hey, I need fifty picassos, give me twenty moros. I need ten dollis.

So the client was the dupe.

Yeah, he was saying that it's all on the all on the art dealers. This is Tetro said. I started making a lot of lithographs of some other artists whose name I can't say. I made so many of his lithographs and I sold them to this big art dealer. He sold them to galleries all over the place, and then he the original artist, found out I did them. He went to all the art dealers and galleries and went out of his way to tell them to watch out for me. Then they contact me and wanted me

And why would Banksy do that?

I love that he won't tell them, you know, to remain nameless.

Yeah, now I'm curious who that is so much.

Tetro a fixture in La. He cruises around and either is Rolls Royce Silver Spirit or he's Tutelin and one of the two Ferraris he owned. He had a Lamborghini.

Does he live? Do we know anything about the identifying aspects of these cars?

Well he is a little bit. So he owned multiple exotic cars. He lived in that custom decorated tri level condo in Claremont. He whisked away all the time to roam Paris, money Carlo. It wasn't really the life of an.

Art forger No or like Robin Leech.

There's money in it, but not that much money. So rumor starts circulating that he's a drug dealer. This is how.

Talk.

It's funds to it. So he said, quote, I even had a friend, this girl, one of my friends would say, oh yeah, I get all my drugs from Tony, and I'd go, why the hell would you say something like that? Then I'd get people calling me for cocaine and I'd be all, why are you calling me? I don't deal drugs, and they'd go, oh yeah, and then click they'd hang

Through the world. Why are you asking him? Why are you Why is this happening here?

He's so unhinged to me, you start.

Making the Toyota Choseell, by the way, was that.

He had no visible source of interest, A naive.

Child wandering innocently through the world.

No inheritance, no apparent career. He's not a lot of winner, so he just has questions. I would automatically assume drugs, and I feel like saying that all your friends call you asking for drugs.

Could they be a jiggowe?

But you don't have them. It's a cover for when you get busted completely. It's like his paintings. They're reproductions. People are calling me by accident, and.

Its happened to always be at the junction of crime. There are two crimes tending together. What happened to be there?

I didn't want that guy to drive a terceill of coke tiles like me.

He just showed up. I barely knew the guy his.

Okay, So for this is a Tetris says again. For well over ten years, every cop in this valley and many people who didn't know me person, we're certain I was a drug dealer. I must have heard it myself conservatively three hundred times. And the more I defended myself, the more I wasn't believed. Drive down the street in a Ferrari and a cop is certain you're a drug dealer, and you're constantly harassed, constantly getting tickets for nothing, constantly

I'm a spin doctor.

So they repped Tetro. But there was a fee, of course, of course he paid them with an oil of Winston Churchill. Wait what, and then a percentage of the proceeds from the sale of a replica of a nineteen fifty eight Ferrari Testosa racecar that Tetro spent six years and several thousand dollars building.

So he not only makes fake paintings, he also replicates ferraris exactly.

So there were only two TR fifty eights built and neither of them survived racing. So Tetro he purchased an old Ferrari streetcar to get the chassis, the engine and the transmission. Then he shortened and narrowed the frame and restored the engine to racing conditions. This is how he said it quote. I went to finite detail in recreating everything exactly the way it was originally. It is a perfect recreation. So, like you're saying, just like his paintings,

That's why they call me.

Oh and then went on to say that some of the jurors quote felt the tape was not as clear as they would have liked. H So the Suwiki tape didn't bring what they thought it would. As for Tetro quote, the prosecution would put ads in the paper looking for victims. Did you buy a fake Schagal? Did you buy a fake Dolly? Did you buy a fake Moro? Did you buy a fake Rembrand? Did you buy fake anything?

Sucker?

And so we expected like five to ten people to come forward grieving. Nobody came. I had a hung jury.

Oh wow.

So he may have had a hung jury then, but his legal woes were far from over. Let's take a break and let these ads soothe our souls. When we come back, I'll tell you what happens next. For old Tone, look welcome. Hey, what's it so Tony Tetrom He got a hung jury, but the prosecutors wouldn't give up. They retried him. He was released on ten thousand dollars bail with orders to return to court on July first for further motions. So in that time he just liquidates his

Was this like a recreated Honda Ci to the details?

It was on like you know, a Hugo's train. So here's what Tetra said about this time.

Oh my god, so good.

Quote. Robert Shapiro was my attorney. Oh yes, I was his client. Just before oj I canned him, he wanted to just plea me to the judge. I said, no, I want my day in court. I'll tell you a tidbit of info that you'd probably never get in the Australian press. Bob Shapiro, he never ever ever went to trial. His thing. All over the US, every attorney knew that Bob's thing was he would plea bargain his clients. That was his thing. Oj originally went to Howard Wiseman, the

Wow.

So he never listened to Bob Shapiro.

What a weird assessment of the American legals. I know, I know, I can't argue with them, but totally so.

He may have been living in Upland and tootling around in a Honda, but he kept his home decor game tight. He had a large framed paper sculpture, an original by Bill Mack, over his sofa. Have you heard of Bill Mack?

No, I don't think so.

I hadn't either, So I checked out his website and I just can't. I can't build Mac. Here's this about me on the home page of his website. Bill Mack has no mentors. There is nowhere to go to learn his sculpture techniques. No one teaches his sculpture technique. Sculptor Bill Mack works in such a rare art form that coming up with a name to describe it has been only slightly less arduous than creating the art itself. Bill Mack Sculpture, simply put, is emotional elegance defined in sculpture.

Emotional please emotional.

Please go look at Bill Max's website. Emotional, Yeah, look at his website.

I handle this much emotional, can't. It's going to blow your hands like inelegant emotion it's just like, I.

Just can't just screaming, Tetro. Could He had him over the a permit. He also had a faux lalique crystal sculpture. Yeah, he had recast bronzes that he had traded for one of his chagalls. And he had a lithograph that had a genuine John Lennon autograph on it. All right, so Tetro. He also had an enormous painting of the Death of d'Artagnan that he paid one thousand dollars for.

Huh, the Death of d'Artagnan. Why does you assigned to the Fourth Musketeer.

Well, no, he didn't want the painting. He wanted the canvas because he said he was going to pay he was going to paint a version of Rembrandts The Night Watch over it.

Oh wow, so good, so Tetro.

He also had Dolly's Nuclear Disintegration of the Head of a Virgin And despite the agent look of the piece like it had a Dolly signature, a plaque that gives the date of the creation of the painting is nineteen fifty three. It's actually a Tetrod. Yeah, he said, it's not a copy of Dolly's work, but an emulation. Quote. I prefer doing emulations more than copying. When asked about the plaque that had Dolly's name in nineteen fifty three on it, he said, quote, job worth doing is worth doing?

Well, you say that all the time. I do so.

According to Tetro, quote, I think we are going to show in essence that I painted and other people did the crime. I never represented them as real. Other people sold My stuff is real.

What are you okay? You looked into this guy? You tell me this st It seems like he's positioned himself at the crossroads of crimes and acting like I'm just happy I'm here directing traffic and innocent cop. Are you mad at the cop when there's a crocity, I'm.

Up front there, the crooked one. Do you believe it? No?

Okay?

But I love it. I love it. So Tetro's attorney not Robert Shapiro. I think he had a public defender at this point. I bet he said. Tetro was obviously not trying to sell his pieces as authentic. Just look at the prices, because he would sell the pieces to Suwiki for three hundred dollars five hundred dollars and SWICKI would then turn around and sell the pieces in his gallery for anywhere between fifteen hundred and seventy five hundred.

Yeah, so clearly there's the markup.

Yeah, here's what Tetro said about that. I want to also emphasize that most of the work that I do was not for the art industry at all. Art brokers contacted me. They came to me because they found that I could copy anything and emulate anything, and they said there's a market for excellent copies. So I started doing them and in fact developed a printing method that is unique,

Yeah. Also, I mean, like I'm gonna put these criminal terms, I can very well understand if you're looking to get busted in say pot right, pot growers are easy to bust because one, they make for great headlines. Well, we went right to the source. They have to sit put, you know what their habits are going to be. Everybody else is hard moving targets to hit. So he is the one. I'm like, these dealers, you got to prove that, you got to audit all their stuff. It's so much

But still so he was up against an eight year sentence. Yeah, and the prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Reva gets quote, gets her man, he has taken the work of these artists and made the market unreliable and thrown into question for most people, the viability of the entire graphics market.

A little bit of that lady.

So in eighty nine he gets convicted for conspiracy and sixty seven counts of art forgery. He did an interview in ninety one and he said, quote, I would like to say to you right now that I'm never going to paint again for a living. Yet I can't say that. I can't yet, I can't say that to be truthful. I would like to you want you can bet I'd stamp copy or reproduction or emulation all over the back

Let's make this work for us, those civic improvement.

He also has to obey a court order to sign all of his works with his name only. And this is how he's like loving this quote all of them asked to not put my stamp on the back. Oh my stamp. I have to put that on everything. I'm the only person in the United States that has to. I'm ordered by the courts. I put three big stamps on them so they don't get go into commerce.

Yes, he's like a court guy.

Yeah. None of the art dealers that he worked with had any charges pressed against them. When Tetro was asked what happened to them, he said, quote nothing. They all lawyered up, waiting for me to rat or drop a dime, and they all lawyered up in nothing, and they certainly wouldn't commission me to do any work. When I got out of jail, they wouldn't talk to me. And then about ten years after there were only two of them that I talked to. One of them bought me a new Mercedes. I didn't have a car.

Like, what story? Do you always do cocaine before you tell a story? Is that? Okay?

Now go well? He never lost the support of his friends. Do you remember mortgage banker Ken Kettner? This is it has a little fun with it. He said. I like Tony very much, a gracious guy who's always been there when you need him. And it went beyond Ken. Seven hundred of Tetro's friends came together for a birthday celebration in an upscale hotel with a birthday cake that had a one eyed Tetro painting a Picasso. Okay, so he currently Tetro currently creates master copies for a list of

Why Montana?

Because he went to Costa Rica and when he got there, all of his friends said, Hey, Tony Montana's in town. Tony Montana from Scarface.

Oh got it, and so he wanted to add it. He's like, I gotta put that in there.

I'm not a drug dealer. I'm just gonna changed my name to Tony to Montana, the.

Greatest fictional drug dealer ever represented on films? What in the what?

What even is this? Twenty eleven, there was a competition announced the Australian Art series. Hotel Group had this thing for guests, like they could they could get a chance to pick an original Warhol valued at like twenty thousand dollars from a row of fakes produced by quote the world's greatest living art forger. So whoever picked the original Warhol could keep it. But if you chose incorrectly, you would win that Warhol by Tony Tetro.

Did you get to buy it? Did again?

Twenty grand Well, the contest was controversial. Yeah, it sounds like so Will Dieg, the chief executive of the Art series. Hotel claimed that the contest was endorsed by the Warhol Foundation, and what do they care about that? They said, as long as the advertising material doesn't use any Warhol images, go for it, which, wow, do.

Keep that relevant? We don't care.

Yeah, but the Warhol Foundation said they were quote appalled to learn that a hotel would think it wise to commission forgery in an attempt to market its services.

Come.

So they probably made it like you could win a Warhol and they're not gonna say, surrounded by faking Tetro's. So Tetros still hustling. That memoir was twenty twenty two.

Every day I'm hustling.

I'm going to add con slash artists to the book club for sure, staying even more relevant. Twenty twenty three, he started a Reddit.

Thread dija twenty twenty three.

This year, Yeah, this year he started a Reddit thread where he announced a documentary about his life called The Royal Stunt.

I don't believe it exists.

Yeah, me neither. So right, what are our final words from old Tony Tetroeh?

Please quote today?

I'm no longer a criminal. Today on my criminal record it says not guilty and I have nothing on my record. I was so lily white. I can't stand myself. I've done nothing wrong.

There you go.

What's your ridiculous takeaways? Aaron?

I believe it was once said I knew John Kennedy. John Kennedy was a friend of mine, and you, sir, are no John Kennedy. I would like to say that about Elmer de Hory. I once heard a great story about Elmer d'hoy and now I've heard a story about you, sir, and you are no Elmer de'hory.

That's beautiful, excellent.

What's yours? Elizabeth? Easy? This is you know, he just flows out of the mouth.

Yes. I love when we have these threads that lead to I'm looking for what's going to spin off of Tony Tetro Because we had Clifford Irving totally Elmire de horri. Now we got Tony Tetro connected like I kind of feel like it's going to be the Ecclestone thing.

Probably you got a three people to look into that.

Yeah. So I love these chains that they create.

That's it. Maybe Kent Kenter maybe dig into him.

Can He's so fun. I just have fun with him. It's fun painting it.

Turns out he's like something crazy for it, like done something horrific we can't even.

Talk about, just like we have to bleep out his name on Future Anyway, That's all I have. Okay, you can find us online at ridiculous crime dot com. There's merch. I think I've got some T shirt ideas.

Oh you got a new one?

Do it?

Do it.

We're also at ridiculous Crime on Is Twitter still a thing? Does it exist? It's called x No I'm saying, but just in general, is it still up?

Yeah? I know it's still there if you want to go get like a horrific Yeah.

I deactivated. I deactivated Twitter.

I'm not on there anymore.

Give us. We're on Instagram. I think we're on threads.

I don't know. I don't go on any of this.

Don't email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Do leave a talk back on iHeart app. We've been getting some good totally. Yeah, there you go. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by Dave Tonio Montana Cousten. Research is by Marissa Brown and Andrea Song Sharpen Tear, co authors of research my life learning about these chuckleheads. The theme song is by Thomas quit Plan On my Phone, Lee and Travis

Ridicous Crime Say It One More Timequeous Crime.

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.