November 2, 2023 • 49 mins
Tony Tetro wasn't the kind of artist who felt the call of inspiration. Instead, he used his talents to forge the masterpieces of great artists. But he really found his way when he started doing forgeries of the great forger, Elmyr de Hory. Come for the art crimes, stay for fact this crimer can tell one helluva story, in his inimitable Tony Tetro way.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Zaren Elizabeth, what's up? How you doing? Girl?
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Good? You know it's ridiculous?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
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
(00:28):
filed her lawsuit in a California court, even though the
lightning strike had occurred in Arizona.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I was gonna say, we don't have a lot of
lightning strikes.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
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
(00:55):
answer our question? What two words? Lou Gottlieb. If you
don't know Lou Gottlieb. He was a former singer and
bass player from the folk trio The Limelighters. Anyway, one
week earlier than the lawsuit was filed, Lou Gottlieb had
transferred the deed to his Morning Star ranch over to God. Okay,
that legally made the Almighty a property owner in the
state of California, and thus God could now be sued. So,
(01:19):
according to the news story I found in the Indianapolis
Star from May fifteenth, nineteen sixty nine, quote, the Sonoma
County Clerk issued a summons for the deity and returned
it to the attorney for service. So basically they were like, here,
go find God, and you find the usubpoena the architect
of the universe. Thank God. So, the news story goes on,
is as plaintiff is informed and believes that defendant God,
at all times mentioned herein is responsible for the maintenance
(01:40):
and operation of the universe, including the weather in and
upon the state of the Arizona, and that on or
about August seventeenth, nineteen sixty Defendant so maintained and controlled
the weather in or around or upon Phoenix, Arizona, in
such careless and negligent manner as it caused lightning to
strike the plaintiff's house, setting it on fire and startling,
frightening and shocking the plaintiff. So they're saying that God's fault.
(02:00):
So then this story, which is good because we had
this like you know, this crazy folk trio that've left
their land to God and this lady's got her like
Oakland lawyer enter our next Kouk a dude in Kenya,
Joseph and Juwey. He steps forward. He's read this story.
He says, I will defend God in this lawsuit, this
one hundred thousand dollars lawsuit. How dare you? So he's
there in Nairobi and he writes the letter because this
(02:23):
is from the Arizona Republic because they also reported on
it May twenty second, nineteen sixty nine. They quote from
in Juey's letter to the Attorney General of the United
States of Arizona. As I understand you have signed the summons,
I would request you kindly to hold this case until
I try and get enough finances to come there and
defend God in court without appealing in person. I can
be called in the court after the change has been read.
(02:45):
The plea of not guilty, must be endorsed. So he's like,
let me go and fight and defend God. So this
offer was kind, noble, we all have to agree, right,
but ultimately unnecessary because Betty Penrose lost her lawsuit on
a technicality. God was never able to take possession of
land since the Almighty did not execute control of the
deeded land. As The Indianapolis Star later reported, the deed
(03:06):
filed quote last week conveying the hippie ranch to God
was quote deemed invalid. So Betty Parsons lawsuit against God
was thrown out. And so just like God, she no
longer had any illegal grounds to stand on. So I
love about this. In nineteen sixty nine and everything, there's
all this mad stuff going on, and what is Betty
Parsons doing. She's like, I'm a sue God.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I was wondering, like, how would God pay the property taxes?
So many method just like manna from heaven.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
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.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
You want to know what else is ridiculous? I'm here
for it, Secret Rooms.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
What this is?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
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.
(04:32):
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.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Can you dance? No?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I'm fascinated by those who can draw and paint.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
And even more people, Oh you're not me, so go on.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
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.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Basically, oh yes, okay, the artist artisan? Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
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
(05:24):
puzzle or riddle to solve. I love figuring out intriguing
ways to make an artwork plausible. I loved doing everything perfect,
leaving little hints that only the most knowledgeable experts would appreciate.
It's strange to say, but half the fun was imagining
the oohs and ahs I would get and the little
nods of appreciation I might receive. Without that art forgery,
(05:47):
would it just been another job?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah? I mean act totally relate. You make your work
entertaining to you. Yeah, it's not the work that's entertaining.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
So who is this guy?
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Who is this guy?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Elizabeth Anthony gen Tetro, Anthony gen Tetra, Tony Tetro, Tony Tetro.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Good. Yeah, that's a great one, right.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
He's a serious character. He was born in nineteen fifty
in Fulton, New York, to Beatrice and James Tetro.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Also haven't heard of them? Run a three to three.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Oh dope, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
These are like good, honest folk who have like cool little.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Things living Americana.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
And they created a wild child.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
So Tetro he was an ultra boy. Were you an
ultra boy? No?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
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.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
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
(07:16):
of her, but pruney faced and in a habit. She
whacked me and took me to the priest.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
He chuckled, Wait a var like a Vargas girl. So
he did her like a pin up with a prony face.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Really yeah, I don't think I've ever heard of it.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
He's like I would put an Asterix steroid era forgers
came to come in.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Tom Binder, president of Tom Binder Fine Arts in Venice, California.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Tom Binder Fine Arts.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Maybe it's Bender whatever, you know who cares.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Got a binder full of benders.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
He said, quote, but you know what the bottom.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Line is the bottom blind guy.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Was just a brilliant mind that went astray. A Frankenstein.
All I know is that guy's a genius.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
So he actually used Frankenstein correctly. He made it the
doctor Frankenstein mad. You know, he went mad, not the monster.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
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.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Really Russian life.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
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.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
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.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah, and it makes it look old and it creates.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
It literally cracks like old desert earth. Right.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
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.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Oh strong man, Okay, showing up.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Well, you know what book that was.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It was the book take a Guess how to win
friends and influence people.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Close Fake by Clifford or You're bron Elmirdhoy Biography.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I would not have guessed that he read.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
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.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I think Elma would be so tickled by that.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Isn't that the greatest? It's like an instruction menial for him.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Full anarchist manifesto for art for Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
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
(10:24):
of pieces. One of his first attempts at selling a
faked piece was a copy of a copy.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
He wanted to do a copy of a forged.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
We talked about that with elmird Hori. Tetro copied a
Dhoy copy of Chagall.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
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?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Stuff, really great art.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
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.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
This out of here. Here.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
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.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
So I did not fair warning.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Now, you know, back to Tetro undeterred, undeterred by all
the insults from Vincent Price.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So there's no appealing in that process.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
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.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
So they just want the effect, the feel.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
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,
(12:10):
you know, like if you're just living in like a
ranch house in like Demas. Yeah, he started copying photographs then. Quote,
I did portraits of many people judges FBI agents. I
did Herb Huffif, and it's hanging in his office right now.
Like FBI agent portraits is so good. So Herb Huffif.
(12:31):
He's a trial lawyer in Claremont, California, which is like
a postable suburb of La right foot of the San
Gabriel Mountains. Hafif said the portrait was a Christmas gift
from his employees. Quote those who claim it to be
a wonderful likeness I consider to be my friends. The
portrait forever memorializes me as a person in his early forties.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
The vasculinity of that jut out.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
So then, Tetro, it's like.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
The author photos. Just take one of the forties. You'll
never see a updated.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Tetro sold a Modigliani drawing for sixteen hundred dollars at
an auction house in Santa Anna, but he got caught.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
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
(13:29):
Warner of Warner Brothers, and she left a diamond ring
at the auction house that Jack Warner had given her.
It was a twenty four carrot d flawless, a very
valuable ring. And so he said to her, i'll sell it.
I'll give you five thousand dollars now, and he gave
her a bracelet and quote, I'll give you the rest
when I sell it.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Now.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
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
(14:08):
the auction house. He got mad at a guy. He
saw my Adigliani drawing and he said, oh, that's fake
and I told him my transmission broke and I needed
the money. The guy called me. He got a hold
of me, and he said, either you paint for me
or I'll break your hands. I'll cut your hands off.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
But then he yes or no, she just like was fake.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
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.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Now, but Robert Woods Johnson, the MPR donor.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Of course, yeah good.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
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
(15:39):
by art who at the end, so he's like taking
it down or not. She's not doing rembrands, but he's
doing something that is more plausible for people. One of
his clients was James Stunt, a bon vivon and the
ex husband of Aris Petra Ecclestone, which.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Why don't I know the name ecclestone.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Well, she legitimately, as an aside, has that plastic surgery
face like no cap God bless. That looks like a
new kind of species.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Given the Santa Monica.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
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.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Oh with a gift wrapper.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I was gonna say, that's the one with candy spellings
gift wrapping.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
How do we all remember that?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
All I remember?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I couldn't tell you anything about that house but other
than it has a gift wrapping exctly.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
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
(16:59):
was one of a defendants in the biggest money laundering
trial in British criminal history. Oh good for it was
a pretty sophisticated two hundred and sixty six million pound operation.
Criminal cash was deposited in a bank account of a
Bradford gold dealer named Fowler Oldfield. Okay, right, So the
prosecutor said that they were eight defendants. They were all
(17:20):
part of a scheme to turn the proceeds of crime
into untraceable gold. Of course, so cash gets brought in
from all over the UK, goes to Fowler, Oldfield and
Stunt's business. They were business partners twenty fourteen to twenty sixteen,
and the defendants hid the money's origin by laundering it
through a company bank account and using the proceeds to
(17:40):
buy gold which was shipped to Dubai. Says all of the.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Elements because is always on. Yeah, so that you know
right away.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
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.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Right, and Tony Tetro makes it really clear that he
wasn't aware of any of this stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
So a portrait painted by Tetro. Would you usually sell
for like five k?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Dude? The pairs on these people.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I do think his time would be worth more.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I was just about to ask.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
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.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
So he became like the Candy Wiley or the Picassos,
like I've got my.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Studio turn these out let's take a break. When we
come back, we'll see what forgeries old Tony had cooking
out zarin.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Hello. When we left off, Tony Tetro was churning out
fake masters, selling them to random millionaires and billionaires and
auction houses.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Fast as a butter maker makes butter.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
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.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
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.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
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
(20:31):
thousand hours of community service, and seventy eight thousand dollars
in restitution. Siwiki agreed to wear a wire in an
effort to catch Tetro. Oh, so siwiki he arranged a
meeting with Tetro at Tetro's condo. They chatted about mutual friends,
art debts, gossip, what have you. Siwiki got Tetro on
(20:52):
tape talking about he quote did a chagole. When siwiki
asked if other Chagall paintings were in the works, Tetro said, yeah,
it's all on tape. Yeah, in an interview. This is
how Tetro put it. It's a sad thing to say,
but I learned of Chagall's death because all the messages
on my answering machine were from art dealers trying to
contact me requesting Chagall paintings and lithographs. That's when I
(21:16):
knew I could do very successful in this. In fact,
I bought a Rolls Royce. The next day. Everybody got
mad at me because I doubled my prices. So He's
just like, yeah, he asked me for a Shagall. Let
me tell you why, because I'm the best at it.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Shagall dropped and all of a sudden, I was like, whoa,
I'm daddy about to make money.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
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.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
But he doesn't do that. I mean my dark chest
Brock is work.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
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.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Smart market though.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
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.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
He's doing Norman Rockwells singer rock Well.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
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
(22:45):
so many this like this condo was like three levels.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
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.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
With a giant curtains, the wooden fence.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Did you pull out No, total.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
That the truck of the bed at the bed of
the truck. But it's a cartoon stake.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Cartoons steak. There was a cartoon wolf looking at it
like I'm gonna.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
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
(23:33):
pieces were overlooked, weren't h Tetro turned around and sold
those to old friends, including Ken Kettner, a mortgage bank.
What are you gonna get right? Here's what Ketner had
to say. I have a couple of real chagalls and
some of Tony's chagalls, and I have a lot of
fun with them. No one can tell the difference. I
also have a genuine Yamagatda that cost me seventy five
(23:53):
hundred dollars. After his arrest, Tony sold me five or
six of his Yama goddas for one thousand dollars. For
all of them aren't bad and they were definitely purchased
as tetros cat nern.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Just sounds like that guy's a liar.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
I have a lot of fun with it.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I'm sorry, fun with it. I just lay down on
my bed. I cover myself with them on paintings.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Giggles. Why were some of the pieces overlooked? You're wondering, Well.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Were some of the pieces over Let me refer to
I'm wondering.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Let me refer you to one of your favorite Reddit posts.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Oh of course, please the one where the.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Person is living with their girlfriend in a house that
the girlfriend owns, and they find out the girlfriend has
a secret room.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Actually my.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Secret room, living together for three years. Didn't know about
the secret room.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
How I love it?
Speaker 3 (24:45):
I know you do well.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
That in the beans and these are my favorites. So
you ask, is it my birthday?
Speaker 3 (24:56):
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
(25:17):
and slammed, piles of stuff being pushed off a desk
to the ground, breaking glass, wallpaper being torn from the walls.
You were terrified. After what seemed like forever, the noise stopped.
A couple of days went by. Then you heard it,
the sound of Tony Tetro's feet, your papa. You hear
him push the button to open the door to his
(25:38):
secret room, where you and your scores of other fakes
rest quietly on the walls and stack neatly on the floor.
The door creaks opened, and there's Tony Tetro. He and
a friend and a crew of six day laborers rush
into the room and scoop up the paintings you included.
Tony Tetro grabs you himself. You try to whisper to him,
(25:58):
I least you dann whisper at zaren whisper, I missed you, daddy,
do it?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I missed you daddy.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
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
(26:25):
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.
Not being able to copy my passion and my energy
means people buyers can't find it in his copies. Yes,
hero Yamagata, I'm right there with you. That's my feeling.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
As a copy I have to dig it.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
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,
(27:13):
but I enjoyed painting and I enjoyed copying. Yeah, there
it is.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
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.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
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
(27:44):
which said Anthony tetro Art reproductions. I sold them as
reproductions or emulations done by me. I was very specific
about it.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I don't believe that.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
I don't need that.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
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.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
It could be discovered in the Grand tradition.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Are you lying by a mission? Sirs?
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Question of all of our rude rude criminals on this show.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
He wrote a memoir, of course, the most literate group
in the world, by.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
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.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
It was co written by gi Imperio Ambrosi, which is
a great name.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Totally, I'm all about that. I come across Jimpero.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
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.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
So the client was the dupe.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
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
(29:12):
went out of his way to tell them to watch
out for me. Then they contact me and wanted me
to work for them. That's how it really started.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
And why would Banksy do that?
Speaker 3 (29:20):
I love that he won't tell them, you know, to
remain nameless.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Yeah, now I'm curious who that is so much.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
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.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Does he live? Do we know anything about the identifying
aspects of these cars?
Speaker 3 (29:40):
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.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Art forger No or like Robin Leech.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
There's money in it, but not that much money. So
rumor starts circulating that he's a drug dealer. This is how.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Talk.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
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
up and be mad at me. This one time, this big,
(30:27):
big drug dealer, we were in a bar and this
is called Magnolia's Peach and where we walked out and
he says, Tony, I want to show you something, and
he opened up the trunk of his Toyota Tursell. I
think it was the first time they made the Toyota Trussell.
Do they still make them? I don't know, but it
was the most inexpensive Toyota ever made, I don't know,
and it was small. He opened up the trunk and
(30:47):
there was nothing but bricks of cocaine in there in
a car that costs five thousand and seven thousand, And
I go, why are you showing this to me? And
he goes and he goes, oh, I don't know. I
thought you might like it. By the way, if I
don't make it home, you're dead. Why would I say
a word? But they got a kick out of it
because I got all the heat, just going.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Through the world. Why are you asking him? Why are
you Why is this happening here?
Speaker 3 (31:10):
He's so unhinged to me, you start.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Making the Toyota Choseell, by the way, was that.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
He had no visible source of interest, A naive.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Child wandering innocently through the world.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
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.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Could they be a jiggowe?
Speaker 3 (31:33):
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.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Its happened to always be at the junction of crime.
There are two crimes tending together. What happened to be there?
Speaker 3 (31:45):
I didn't want that guy to drive a terceill of
coke tiles like me.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
He just showed up. I barely knew the guy his.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
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,
(32:12):
and you're constantly harassed, constantly getting tickets for nothing, constantly
getting your car searched. So there was some satisfaction, even
some pride when I was arrested that they finally, these
idiots knew that I was an artist. Final I got
fosted for the right thing. Enter Mark Manning, chief press
agent for Exclusive News Relations of Los Angeles. Quote, we
(32:37):
specialize in celebrity repositioning people who have been misunderstood by
the public and the media.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I'm a spin doctor.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
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.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
So he not only makes fake paintings, he also replicates
ferraris exactly.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
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
(33:29):
perfect recreation. So, like you're saying, just like his paintings,
he fakes a Ferrari. Yeah, so he sold that and
that's how he paid for the press agent back. You know,
we get back there. Tetro pleads not guilty to conspiracy
and forgery at a preliminary hearing where the siwiki tape
was played. We can make it wat yep. On June seventh,
(33:51):
nineteen ninety one, mistrial was declared after the jurors of
the LA Superior Court said to Judge John Henny that
there was a deadlock and they were unable to reach
a verdict. So the trial gone on for a month
and they deliberated for seventeen hours. According to Deputy District
Attorney Riva Getz quote. Obviously, I'm very sorry that the
(34:11):
jurors could not agree on a verdict, but my confidence
in the case remains.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
That's why they call me.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
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?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Sucker?
Speaker 3 (34:40):
And so we expected like five to ten people to
come forward grieving. Nobody came. I had a hung jury.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
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
(35:22):
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
assets in order to fund his defense. He sold the
exotic cars, he sold the tri level condo. He moved
to an apartment in Upland, California, which is maybe not
(35:45):
as pascious. Clear he started he started driving a Honda Civic. Oh,
life was different, a little bit different.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Was this like a recreated Honda Ci to the details?
Speaker 3 (35:58):
It was on like you know, a Hugo's train. So
here's what Tetra said about this time.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Oh my god, so good.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
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
(36:26):
Bob's thing was he would plea bargain his clients. That
was his thing. Oj originally went to Howard Wiseman, the
best attorney in LA. He's the one who got Bob
Dolorian off, the guy who made cars. Then OJ went
to Bob Shapiro, and Shapiro smelled fame and fortune and
got his dream team together and they went to trial.
But he wasn't going to go to trial for me.
I wanted my day in court. But anyway, they charged
(36:47):
me for everything. Two thousand dollars for incomplete telephone calls, incomplete,
not counting the completed calls. I spent thousands of dollars
for parking to go to court, and they just hosed me.
I didn't make a penny for four and a half years.
All I did was spend, spend, spend. They'd say, Oh,
I need another twenty thousand dollars, I need another thirty
thousand dollars for this and this. So half a million
(37:07):
dollars later, I'm sitting there. I have a hung jury
and they're going to try me again. I got no money,
I have no work. So they offered me a year.
I said I'll take it. If i'd have gone with Shapiro,
he would have gotten me a year and a half.
I should have done that. I would have kept everything.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
So he never listened to Bob Shapiro.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
What a weird assessment of the American legals. I know,
I know, I can't argue with them, but totally so.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
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?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
No, I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
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
(38:05):
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.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Emotional please emotional.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Please go look at Bill Max's website. Emotional, Yeah, look
at his website.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
I handle this much emotional, can't. It's going to blow
your hands like inelegant emotion it's just like, I.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
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.
(38:50):
He also had an enormous painting of the Death of
d'Artagnan that he paid one thousand dollars for.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Huh, the Death of d'Artagnan. Why does you assigned to
the Fourth Musketeer.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Oh wow, so good, so Tetro.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
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.
(39:33):
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?
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Well, you say that all the time. I do so.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
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.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Up front there, the crooked one. Do you believe it? No?
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (40:13):
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.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Yeah, so clearly there's the markup.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
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,
and I did colored lithographs Chagall, dalis Moreau. How is
(41:00):
that not for the art industry if you're doing this
for the art.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
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,
(41:25):
you got to audit all their stuff. It's so much
more work. Nobody wants to do that. You get him.
You're like, look, welcome what we did. Yeah, right up
the headlines. Exactly Why does he not get that? That's
what I know. Otherwise he may just be lying and
pretending like he doesn't get anything. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
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.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
A little bit of that lady.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
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
(42:20):
stamp copy or reproduction or emulation all over the back
of it. He's not going to stop. February ninety three,
he pleads no contest to one count of attempted theft,
account of conspiracy, six counts of forgery. He gets released
from jail in ninety four, and his sentence included two
hundred hours of community service six months in a work
release program to paint prototypes for traffic safety manuals. It
(42:44):
is five years of probation. And in order to paint
a mural on a public building, They're like, let's put
this to work.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Let's make this work for us, those civic improvement.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yes, he's like a court guy.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
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
(43:39):
that I talked to. One of them bought me a
new Mercedes. I didn't have a car.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Like, what story? Do you always do cocaine before you
tell a story? Is that? Okay?
Speaker 3 (43:50):
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
(44:12):
a one eyed Tetro painting a Picasso. Okay, so he
currently Tetro currently creates master copies for a list of
exclusive clients from his studio in southern California. Good for
Him Focus, a BBC Science and Technology magazine, produced an
article instructing people how to create their own fake pieces
(44:33):
using Tetro's techniques like how to Wow twenty ten, he
legally changed his name to Antonio Montana Tetro.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Why Montana?
Speaker 3 (44:44):
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.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Oh got it, and so he wanted to add it.
He's like, I gotta put that in there.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
I'm not a drug dealer. I'm just gonna changed my
name to Tony to Montana, the.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Greatest fictional drug dealer ever represented on films? What in
the what?
Speaker 3 (45:06):
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
(45:26):
Warhol could keep it. But if you chose incorrectly, you
would win that Warhol by Tony Tetro.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Did you get to buy it? Did again?
Speaker 3 (45:34):
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.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Keep that relevant? We don't care.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Come.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
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.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Every day I'm hustling.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
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.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Thread dija twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
This year, Yeah, this year he started a Reddit thread
where he announced a documentary about his life called The
Royal Stunt.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
I don't believe it exists.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
Yeah, me neither. So right, what are our final words
from old Tony Tetroeh?
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Please quote today?
Speaker 3 (46:39):
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.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
What's your ridiculous takeaways? Aaron?
Speaker 2 (46:52):
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.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
That's beautiful, excellent.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
What's yours? Elizabeth? Easy? This is you know, he just
flows out of the mouth.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
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.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
Probably you got a three people to look into that.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
Yeah. So I love these chains that they create.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
That's it. Maybe Kent Kenter maybe dig into him.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
Can He's so fun. I just have fun with him.
It's fun painting it.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
Turns out he's like something crazy for it, like done
something horrific we can't even.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Oh you got a new one?
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Do it?
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Do it.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
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?
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Yeah? I know it's still there if you want to
go get like a horrific Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
I deactivated. I deactivated Twitter.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
I'm not on there anymore.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Give us. We're on Instagram. I think we're on threads.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
I don't know. I don't go on any of this.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
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
(48:43):
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
want to buy a Toyota Tursel Dutton. Executive producers are
Plea Bargain expert Ben Bolin and Kincaid authenticator Noel Brown.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
Ridicous Crime Say It One More Timequeous Crime.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
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.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Zaren Elizabeth, what's up? How you doing? Girl?
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Good? You know it's ridiculous?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
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
(00:28):
filed her lawsuit in a California court, even though the
lightning strike had occurred in Arizona.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I was gonna say, we don't have a lot of
lightning strikes.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
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
(00:55):
answer our question? What two words? Lou Gottlieb. If you
don't know Lou Gottlieb. He was a former singer and
bass player from the folk trio The Limelighters. Anyway, one
week earlier than the lawsuit was filed, Lou Gottlieb had
transferred the deed to his Morning Star ranch over to God. Okay,
that legally made the Almighty a property owner in the
state of California, and thus God could now be sued. So,
(01:19):
according to the news story I found in the Indianapolis
Star from May fifteenth, nineteen sixty nine, quote, the Sonoma
County Clerk issued a summons for the deity and returned
it to the attorney for service. So basically they were like, here,
go find God, and you find the usubpoena the architect
of the universe. Thank God. So, the news story goes on,
is as plaintiff is informed and believes that defendant God,
at all times mentioned herein is responsible for the maintenance
(01:40):
and operation of the universe, including the weather in and
upon the state of the Arizona, and that on or
about August seventeenth, nineteen sixty Defendant so maintained and controlled
the weather in or around or upon Phoenix, Arizona, in
such careless and negligent manner as it caused lightning to
strike the plaintiff's house, setting it on fire and startling,
frightening and shocking the plaintiff. So they're saying that God's fault.
(02:00):
So then this story, which is good because we had
this like you know, this crazy folk trio that've left
their land to God and this lady's got her like
Oakland lawyer enter our next Kouk a dude in Kenya,
Joseph and Juwey. He steps forward. He's read this story.
He says, I will defend God in this lawsuit, this
one hundred thousand dollars lawsuit. How dare you? So he's
there in Nairobi and he writes the letter because this
(02:23):
is from the Arizona Republic because they also reported on
it May twenty second, nineteen sixty nine. They quote from
in Juey's letter to the Attorney General of the United
States of Arizona. As I understand you have signed the summons,
I would request you kindly to hold this case until
I try and get enough finances to come there and
defend God in court without appealing in person. I can
be called in the court after the change has been read.
(02:45):
The plea of not guilty, must be endorsed. So he's like,
let me go and fight and defend God. So this
offer was kind, noble, we all have to agree, right,
but ultimately unnecessary because Betty Penrose lost her lawsuit on
a technicality. God was never able to take possession of
land since the Almighty did not execute control of the
deeded land. As The Indianapolis Star later reported, the deed
(03:06):
filed quote last week conveying the hippie ranch to God
was quote deemed invalid. So Betty Parsons lawsuit against God
was thrown out. And so just like God, she no
longer had any illegal grounds to stand on. So I
love about this. In nineteen sixty nine and everything, there's
all this mad stuff going on, and what is Betty
Parsons doing. She's like, I'm a sue God.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I was wondering, like, how would God pay the property taxes?
So many method just like manna from heaven.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
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.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
You want to know what else is ridiculous? I'm here
for it, Secret Rooms.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
What this is?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
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.
(04:32):
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.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Can you dance? No?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I'm fascinated by those who can draw and paint.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
And even more people, Oh you're not me, so go on.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
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.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Basically, oh yes, okay, the artist artisan? Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
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
(05:24):
puzzle or riddle to solve. I love figuring out intriguing
ways to make an artwork plausible. I loved doing everything perfect,
leaving little hints that only the most knowledgeable experts would appreciate.
It's strange to say, but half the fun was imagining
the oohs and ahs I would get and the little
nods of appreciation I might receive. Without that art forgery,
(05:47):
would it just been another job?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah? I mean act totally relate. You make your work
entertaining to you. Yeah, it's not the work that's entertaining.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
So who is this guy?
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Who is this guy?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Elizabeth Anthony gen Tetro, Anthony gen Tetra, Tony Tetro, Tony Tetro.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Good. Yeah, that's a great one, right.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
He's a serious character. He was born in nineteen fifty
in Fulton, New York, to Beatrice and James Tetro.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Also haven't heard of them? Run a three to three.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Oh dope, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
These are like good, honest folk who have like cool little.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Things living Americana.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
And they created a wild child.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
So Tetro he was an ultra boy. Were you an
ultra boy? No?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
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.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
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
(07:16):
of her, but pruney faced and in a habit. She
whacked me and took me to the priest.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
He chuckled, Wait a var like a Vargas girl. So
he did her like a pin up with a prony face.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Really yeah, I don't think I've ever heard of it.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
He's like I would put an Asterix steroid era forgers
came to come in.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Tom Binder, president of Tom Binder Fine Arts in Venice, California.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Tom Binder Fine Arts.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Maybe it's Bender whatever, you know who cares.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Got a binder full of benders.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
He said, quote, but you know what the bottom.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Line is the bottom blind guy.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Was just a brilliant mind that went astray. A Frankenstein.
All I know is that guy's a genius.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
So he actually used Frankenstein correctly. He made it the
doctor Frankenstein mad. You know, he went mad, not the monster.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
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.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Really Russian life.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
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.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
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.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah, and it makes it look old and it creates.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
It literally cracks like old desert earth. Right.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
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.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Oh strong man, Okay, showing up.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Well, you know what book that was.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It was the book take a Guess how to win
friends and influence people.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Close Fake by Clifford or You're bron Elmirdhoy Biography.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I would not have guessed that he read.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
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.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I think Elma would be so tickled by that.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Isn't that the greatest? It's like an instruction menial for him.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Full anarchist manifesto for art for Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
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
(10:24):
of pieces. One of his first attempts at selling a
faked piece was a copy of a copy.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
He wanted to do a copy of a forged.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
We talked about that with elmird Hori. Tetro copied a
Dhoy copy of Chagall.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
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?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Stuff, really great art.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
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.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
This out of here. Here.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
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.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
So I did not fair warning.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Now, you know, back to Tetro undeterred, undeterred by all
the insults from Vincent Price.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So there's no appealing in that process.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
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.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
So they just want the effect, the feel.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
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,
(12:10):
you know, like if you're just living in like a
ranch house in like Demas. Yeah, he started copying photographs then. Quote,
I did portraits of many people judges FBI agents. I
did Herb Huffif, and it's hanging in his office right now.
Like FBI agent portraits is so good. So Herb Huffif.
(12:31):
He's a trial lawyer in Claremont, California, which is like
a postable suburb of La right foot of the San
Gabriel Mountains. Hafif said the portrait was a Christmas gift
from his employees. Quote those who claim it to be
a wonderful likeness I consider to be my friends. The
portrait forever memorializes me as a person in his early forties.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
The vasculinity of that jut out.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
So then, Tetro, it's like.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
The author photos. Just take one of the forties. You'll
never see a updated.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Tetro sold a Modigliani drawing for sixteen hundred dollars at
an auction house in Santa Anna, but he got caught.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
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
(13:29):
Warner of Warner Brothers, and she left a diamond ring
at the auction house that Jack Warner had given her.
It was a twenty four carrot d flawless, a very
valuable ring. And so he said to her, i'll sell it.
I'll give you five thousand dollars now, and he gave
her a bracelet and quote, I'll give you the rest
when I sell it.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Now.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
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
(14:08):
the auction house. He got mad at a guy. He
saw my Adigliani drawing and he said, oh, that's fake
and I told him my transmission broke and I needed
the money. The guy called me. He got a hold
of me, and he said, either you paint for me
or I'll break your hands. I'll cut your hands off.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
But then he yes or no, she just like was fake.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
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.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Now, but Robert Woods Johnson, the MPR donor.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Of course, yeah good.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
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
(15:39):
by art who at the end, so he's like taking
it down or not. She's not doing rembrands, but he's
doing something that is more plausible for people. One of
his clients was James Stunt, a bon vivon and the
ex husband of Aris Petra Ecclestone, which.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Why don't I know the name ecclestone.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Well, she legitimately, as an aside, has that plastic surgery
face like no cap God bless. That looks like a
new kind of species.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Given the Santa Monica.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
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.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Oh with a gift wrapper.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I was gonna say, that's the one with candy spellings
gift wrapping.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
How do we all remember that?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
All I remember?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I couldn't tell you anything about that house but other
than it has a gift wrapping exctly.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
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
(16:59):
was one of a defendants in the biggest money laundering
trial in British criminal history. Oh good for it was
a pretty sophisticated two hundred and sixty six million pound operation.
Criminal cash was deposited in a bank account of a
Bradford gold dealer named Fowler Oldfield. Okay, right, So the
prosecutor said that they were eight defendants. They were all
(17:20):
part of a scheme to turn the proceeds of crime
into untraceable gold. Of course, so cash gets brought in
from all over the UK, goes to Fowler, Oldfield and
Stunt's business. They were business partners twenty fourteen to twenty sixteen,
and the defendants hid the money's origin by laundering it
through a company bank account and using the proceeds to
(17:40):
buy gold which was shipped to Dubai. Says all of the.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Elements because is always on. Yeah, so that you know
right away.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
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.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Right, and Tony Tetro makes it really clear that he
wasn't aware of any of this stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
So a portrait painted by Tetro. Would you usually sell
for like five k?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Dude? The pairs on these people.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I do think his time would be worth more.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I was just about to ask.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
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.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
So he became like the Candy Wiley or the Picassos,
like I've got my.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Studio turn these out let's take a break. When we
come back, we'll see what forgeries old Tony had cooking
out zarin.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Hello. When we left off, Tony Tetro was churning out
fake masters, selling them to random millionaires and billionaires and
auction houses.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Fast as a butter maker makes butter.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
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.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
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.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
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
(20:31):
thousand hours of community service, and seventy eight thousand dollars
in restitution. Siwiki agreed to wear a wire in an
effort to catch Tetro. Oh, so siwiki he arranged a
meeting with Tetro at Tetro's condo. They chatted about mutual friends,
art debts, gossip, what have you. Siwiki got Tetro on
(20:52):
tape talking about he quote did a chagole. When siwiki
asked if other Chagall paintings were in the works, Tetro said, yeah,
it's all on tape. Yeah, in an interview. This is
how Tetro put it. It's a sad thing to say,
but I learned of Chagall's death because all the messages
on my answering machine were from art dealers trying to
contact me requesting Chagall paintings and lithographs. That's when I
(21:16):
knew I could do very successful in this. In fact,
I bought a Rolls Royce. The next day. Everybody got
mad at me because I doubled my prices. So He's
just like, yeah, he asked me for a Shagall. Let
me tell you why, because I'm the best at it.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Shagall dropped and all of a sudden, I was like, whoa,
I'm daddy about to make money.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
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.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
But he doesn't do that. I mean my dark chest
Brock is work.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
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.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Smart market though.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
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.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
He's doing Norman Rockwells singer rock Well.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
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
(22:45):
so many this like this condo was like three levels.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
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.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
With a giant curtains, the wooden fence.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Did you pull out No, total.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
That the truck of the bed at the bed of
the truck. But it's a cartoon stake.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Cartoons steak. There was a cartoon wolf looking at it
like I'm gonna.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
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
(23:33):
pieces were overlooked, weren't h Tetro turned around and sold
those to old friends, including Ken Kettner, a mortgage bank.
What are you gonna get right? Here's what Ketner had
to say. I have a couple of real chagalls and
some of Tony's chagalls, and I have a lot of
fun with them. No one can tell the difference. I
also have a genuine Yamagatda that cost me seventy five
(23:53):
hundred dollars. After his arrest, Tony sold me five or
six of his Yama goddas for one thousand dollars. For
all of them aren't bad and they were definitely purchased
as tetros cat nern.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Just sounds like that guy's a liar.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
I have a lot of fun with it.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I'm sorry, fun with it. I just lay down on
my bed. I cover myself with them on paintings.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Giggles. Why were some of the pieces overlooked? You're wondering, Well.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Were some of the pieces over Let me refer to
I'm wondering.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Let me refer you to one of your favorite Reddit posts.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Oh of course, please the one where the.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Person is living with their girlfriend in a house that
the girlfriend owns, and they find out the girlfriend has
a secret room.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Actually my.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Secret room, living together for three years. Didn't know about
the secret room.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
How I love it?
Speaker 3 (24:45):
I know you do well.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
That in the beans and these are my favorites. So
you ask, is it my birthday?
Speaker 3 (24:56):
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
(25:17):
and slammed, piles of stuff being pushed off a desk
to the ground, breaking glass, wallpaper being torn from the walls.
You were terrified. After what seemed like forever, the noise stopped.
A couple of days went by. Then you heard it,
the sound of Tony Tetro's feet, your papa. You hear
him push the button to open the door to his
(25:38):
secret room, where you and your scores of other fakes
rest quietly on the walls and stack neatly on the floor.
The door creaks opened, and there's Tony Tetro. He and
a friend and a crew of six day laborers rush
into the room and scoop up the paintings you included.
Tony Tetro grabs you himself. You try to whisper to him,
(25:58):
I least you dann whisper at zaren whisper, I missed you, daddy,
do it?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I missed you daddy.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
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
(26:25):
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.
Not being able to copy my passion and my energy
means people buyers can't find it in his copies. Yes,
hero Yamagata, I'm right there with you. That's my feeling.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
As a copy I have to dig it.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
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,
(27:13):
but I enjoyed painting and I enjoyed copying. Yeah, there
it is.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
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.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
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
(27:44):
which said Anthony tetro Art reproductions. I sold them as
reproductions or emulations done by me. I was very specific
about it.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I don't believe that.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
I don't need that.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
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.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
It could be discovered in the Grand tradition.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Are you lying by a mission? Sirs?
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Question of all of our rude rude criminals on this show.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
He wrote a memoir, of course, the most literate group
in the world, by.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
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.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
It was co written by gi Imperio Ambrosi, which is
a great name.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Totally, I'm all about that. I come across Jimpero.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
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.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
So the client was the dupe.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
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
(29:12):
went out of his way to tell them to watch
out for me. Then they contact me and wanted me
to work for them. That's how it really started.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
And why would Banksy do that?
Speaker 3 (29:20):
I love that he won't tell them, you know, to
remain nameless.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Yeah, now I'm curious who that is so much.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
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.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Does he live? Do we know anything about the identifying
aspects of these cars?
Speaker 3 (29:40):
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.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Art forger No or like Robin Leech.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
There's money in it, but not that much money. So
rumor starts circulating that he's a drug dealer. This is how.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Talk.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
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
up and be mad at me. This one time, this big,
(30:27):
big drug dealer, we were in a bar and this
is called Magnolia's Peach and where we walked out and
he says, Tony, I want to show you something, and
he opened up the trunk of his Toyota Tursell. I
think it was the first time they made the Toyota Trussell.
Do they still make them? I don't know, but it
was the most inexpensive Toyota ever made, I don't know,
and it was small. He opened up the trunk and
(30:47):
there was nothing but bricks of cocaine in there in
a car that costs five thousand and seven thousand, And
I go, why are you showing this to me? And
he goes and he goes, oh, I don't know. I
thought you might like it. By the way, if I
don't make it home, you're dead. Why would I say
a word? But they got a kick out of it
because I got all the heat, just going.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Through the world. Why are you asking him? Why are
you Why is this happening here?
Speaker 3 (31:10):
He's so unhinged to me, you start.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Making the Toyota Choseell, by the way, was that.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
He had no visible source of interest, A naive.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Child wandering innocently through the world.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
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.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Could they be a jiggowe?
Speaker 3 (31:33):
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.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Its happened to always be at the junction of crime.
There are two crimes tending together. What happened to be there?
Speaker 3 (31:45):
I didn't want that guy to drive a terceill of
coke tiles like me.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
He just showed up. I barely knew the guy his.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
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,
(32:12):
and you're constantly harassed, constantly getting tickets for nothing, constantly
getting your car searched. So there was some satisfaction, even
some pride when I was arrested that they finally, these
idiots knew that I was an artist. Final I got
fosted for the right thing. Enter Mark Manning, chief press
agent for Exclusive News Relations of Los Angeles. Quote, we
(32:37):
specialize in celebrity repositioning people who have been misunderstood by
the public and the media.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I'm a spin doctor.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
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.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
So he not only makes fake paintings, he also replicates
ferraris exactly.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
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
(33:29):
perfect recreation. So, like you're saying, just like his paintings,
he fakes a Ferrari. Yeah, so he sold that and
that's how he paid for the press agent back. You know,
we get back there. Tetro pleads not guilty to conspiracy
and forgery at a preliminary hearing where the siwiki tape
was played. We can make it wat yep. On June seventh,
(33:51):
nineteen ninety one, mistrial was declared after the jurors of
the LA Superior Court said to Judge John Henny that
there was a deadlock and they were unable to reach
a verdict. So the trial gone on for a month
and they deliberated for seventeen hours. According to Deputy District
Attorney Riva Getz quote. Obviously, I'm very sorry that the
(34:11):
jurors could not agree on a verdict, but my confidence
in the case remains.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
That's why they call me.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
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?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Sucker?
Speaker 3 (34:40):
And so we expected like five to ten people to
come forward grieving. Nobody came. I had a hung jury.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
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
(35:22):
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
assets in order to fund his defense. He sold the
exotic cars, he sold the tri level condo. He moved
to an apartment in Upland, California, which is maybe not
(35:45):
as pascious. Clear he started he started driving a Honda Civic. Oh,
life was different, a little bit different.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Was this like a recreated Honda Ci to the details?
Speaker 3 (35:58):
It was on like you know, a Hugo's train. So
here's what Tetra said about this time.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Oh my god, so good.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
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
(36:26):
Bob's thing was he would plea bargain his clients. That
was his thing. Oj originally went to Howard Wiseman, the
best attorney in LA. He's the one who got Bob
Dolorian off, the guy who made cars. Then OJ went
to Bob Shapiro, and Shapiro smelled fame and fortune and
got his dream team together and they went to trial.
But he wasn't going to go to trial for me.
I wanted my day in court. But anyway, they charged
(36:47):
me for everything. Two thousand dollars for incomplete telephone calls, incomplete,
not counting the completed calls. I spent thousands of dollars
for parking to go to court, and they just hosed me.
I didn't make a penny for four and a half years.
All I did was spend, spend, spend. They'd say, Oh,
I need another twenty thousand dollars, I need another thirty
thousand dollars for this and this. So half a million
(37:07):
dollars later, I'm sitting there. I have a hung jury
and they're going to try me again. I got no money,
I have no work. So they offered me a year.
I said I'll take it. If i'd have gone with Shapiro,
he would have gotten me a year and a half.
I should have done that. I would have kept everything.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
So he never listened to Bob Shapiro.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
What a weird assessment of the American legals. I know,
I know, I can't argue with them, but totally so.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
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?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
No, I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
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
(38:05):
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.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Emotional please emotional.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Please go look at Bill Max's website. Emotional, Yeah, look
at his website.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
I handle this much emotional, can't. It's going to blow
your hands like inelegant emotion it's just like, I.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
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.
(38:50):
He also had an enormous painting of the Death of
d'Artagnan that he paid one thousand dollars for.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Huh, the Death of d'Artagnan. Why does you assigned to
the Fourth Musketeer.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Oh wow, so good, so Tetro.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
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.
(39:33):
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?
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Well, you say that all the time. I do so.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
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.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Up front there, the crooked one. Do you believe it? No?
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (40:13):
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.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Yeah, so clearly there's the markup.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
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,
and I did colored lithographs Chagall, dalis Moreau. How is
(41:00):
that not for the art industry if you're doing this
for the art.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
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,
(41:25):
you got to audit all their stuff. It's so much
more work. Nobody wants to do that. You get him.
You're like, look, welcome what we did. Yeah, right up
the headlines. Exactly Why does he not get that? That's
what I know. Otherwise he may just be lying and
pretending like he doesn't get anything. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
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.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
A little bit of that lady.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
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
(42:20):
stamp copy or reproduction or emulation all over the back
of it. He's not going to stop. February ninety three,
he pleads no contest to one count of attempted theft,
account of conspiracy, six counts of forgery. He gets released
from jail in ninety four, and his sentence included two
hundred hours of community service six months in a work
release program to paint prototypes for traffic safety manuals. It
(42:44):
is five years of probation. And in order to paint
a mural on a public building, They're like, let's put
this to work.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Let's make this work for us, those civic improvement.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yes, he's like a court guy.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
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
(43:39):
that I talked to. One of them bought me a
new Mercedes. I didn't have a car.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Like, what story? Do you always do cocaine before you
tell a story? Is that? Okay?
Speaker 3 (43:50):
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
(44:12):
a one eyed Tetro painting a Picasso. Okay, so he
currently Tetro currently creates master copies for a list of
exclusive clients from his studio in southern California. Good for
Him Focus, a BBC Science and Technology magazine, produced an
article instructing people how to create their own fake pieces
(44:33):
using Tetro's techniques like how to Wow twenty ten, he
legally changed his name to Antonio Montana Tetro.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Why Montana?
Speaker 3 (44:44):
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.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Oh got it, and so he wanted to add it.
He's like, I gotta put that in there.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
I'm not a drug dealer. I'm just gonna changed my
name to Tony to Montana, the.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Greatest fictional drug dealer ever represented on films? What in
the what?
Speaker 3 (45:06):
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
(45:26):
Warhol could keep it. But if you chose incorrectly, you
would win that Warhol by Tony Tetro.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Did you get to buy it? Did again?
Speaker 3 (45:34):
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.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Keep that relevant? We don't care.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Come.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
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.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Every day I'm hustling.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
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.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Thread dija twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
This year, Yeah, this year he started a Reddit thread
where he announced a documentary about his life called The
Royal Stunt.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
I don't believe it exists.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
Yeah, me neither. So right, what are our final words
from old Tony Tetroeh?
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Please quote today?
Speaker 3 (46:39):
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.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
What's your ridiculous takeaways? Aaron?
Speaker 2 (46:52):
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.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
That's beautiful, excellent.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
What's yours? Elizabeth? Easy? This is you know, he just
flows out of the mouth.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
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.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
Probably you got a three people to look into that.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
Yeah. So I love these chains that they create.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
That's it. Maybe Kent Kenter maybe dig into him.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
Can He's so fun. I just have fun with him.
It's fun painting it.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
Turns out he's like something crazy for it, like done
something horrific we can't even.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Oh you got a new one?
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Do it?
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Do it.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
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?
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Yeah? I know it's still there if you want to
go get like a horrific Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
I deactivated. I deactivated Twitter.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
I'm not on there anymore.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Give us. We're on Instagram. I think we're on threads.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
I don't know. I don't go on any of this.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
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
(48:43):
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
want to buy a Toyota Tursel Dutton. Executive producers are
Plea Bargain expert Ben Bolin and Kincaid authenticator Noel Brown.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
Ridicous Crime Say It One More Timequeous Crime.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
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.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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