A former resident of Beverly Hills and the owner of a lender shop attempted to sell Andy Warhol stolen arts and lied in terms of federal agents, the authorities said.
Glenn Steven Bednarsh, 58, was accused of having knowingly bought proof of stolen Warhol test representing the leader of the Soviet Union Vladimir Lenine in February 2021 for $ 6,000. He then tried to sell him to an auction house based in Dallas, according to a press release from the American prosecutor’s office.
The proof of the trial of the emblematic pop artist, number 44 of only 46 he made, is worth around $ 175,000.
Bednarsh, who now lives in Farmington, Michigan, is charged in a federal indictment of the great jury of two leaders of conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods.
The owner of the lender on wages asked Brian Alec Light, 58, of Hudson, Ohio, and formerly of the city center of Los Angeles, to help him sell the stolen art, the authorities said. Light allegedly contacted the auction house in March 2021 and Bednarsh transported the room to the Bureau of Beverly Hills before the auction house has sent it to its base in Dallas. The officials did not appoint the auction house or the lender on wages.
An employee of the auction house in Dallas contacted an art gallery West Hollywood for his opinion on the room, and the gallery immediately recognized the room as a stolen, according to court documents. The gallery, which was not identified by the authorities, then informed the auction house and the FBI that the work was stolen, according to the press release.
Light would have lied to the FBI agents when he was asked questions about art in March 2021, saying that he had bought the part during a selling garage at Culver City for $ 18,000 and provided a false reception of the manufactured transaction. While the investigation continued, Bednarsh was questioned by FBI agents in August and September of the same year, and would have lied to the investigators telling him that Light had asked him to store the work of art and that he did it without any desire to benefit financially.
The work was stolen by an unknown thief, and not on light or Bednarsh, at the beginning of 2021 of the home of the victim of the County of Los Angeles, according to a press release separate from the office of the American prosecutor in 2024. Days after the flight, the thief brought the work of art to the Pawnshop in Bednarsh, where he bought it.
The proof of Lenin Trial is only one of the many Warhol works that have been the subject of a high -level theft. Warhol’s screen printing in 1972 entitled “Mao” was stolen from Orange Coast College in March 2024; A collection of several million dollars from Warhol Originals was stolen in a house in Los Angeles in 2009; And several other Warhol flights have made the headlines in the past two decades.
Light pleaded guilty to a chief of accusation of interstate transport of goods stolen in November 2024. His conviction was set for May 27, and he risks up to 10 years in federal prison.
Bednarsh is expected to be brought to justice in the coming weeks before the US district court in downtown Los Angeles.
California Daily Newspapers
