A Michigan art dealer, who preyed on elderly clients, has pled guilty to defrauding more than 10 collectors out of an estimated $1.5 million in a lengthy scheme where she faked serious illness and created phony employees, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Michigan announced.
The dealer, Wendy Halstead Beard, was charged with one count of wire fraud related to a multi-year scheme in which she concocted elaborate lies to con clients out of money and photographic prints. She pled guilty to fraud July 13. She now faces up to 20 years in federal prison. Her sentencing is set for December of this year.
Beard “swindled numerous families out of valuable artwork and lied to them repeatedly in order to keep her fraud scheme afloat,” U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison said in a statement. “She did this for no reason other than to line her own pockets at the expense of her victims.”
“There is no place for this kind of criminal deceit in our community, and today’s conviction holds this defendant accountable for her conduct,” Ison added.
Beard, 58, ran the Wendy Halsted Gallery in the Detroit suburb of Birmingham. She was arrested last October. During a multi-year scheme, Beard received fine art photography prints on consignment, sold the artwork without the knowledge of the owners, kept the profits for her own personal gain, and continually deceived the owners about the status of their photographs.
Courtesy of FBI
According to the plea agreement, beginning in approximately March 2019 and continuing through October 2022, Beard executed a scheme to defraud a number of her customers. The purpose of the scheme was for Beard to embezzle the proceeds from the sale of multiple fine art photographs that had been provided to her by her customers on a consignment basis.
Throughout the scheme, Beard attempted to lull her victims into a false sense of security by offering excuses for her unwillingness or inability to promptly return the victims’ photographs after the expiration of the operative consignment agreements. These excuses consisted of, among other things, exaggerating the severity of her own health problems, including claiming to have recently been in a coma and to have received a double-lung transplant.
In other instances, Beard told her victims that there was a lack of interest among potential purchasers—despite having already sold the photographs in question. Beard also created fake “employee” identities which she used to correspond with her victims in a further effort to deceive them.
In the plea agreement, Beard acknowledged defrauding more than ten victims over the course of her scheme. She further admitted that at least one victim was vulnerable due to the victim’s advanced age. According to court records, the government asserts that the losses associated with the scheme are at least $1.5 million.
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