Art Adviser Lisa Schiff Sentenced to 2.5 Years in Prison for Fraud
134March 20, 2025
Discredited art adviserLisa Schiff, who last yearpleaded guiltyto bilking her blue-chip clients out of $6.5 million, has beensentencedto thirty months in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release. Schiff must turn herself in to begin serving her term by July 1. The sentencing, which took place in a downtown Manhattan court on the morning of March 19, capped a spectacular fall from grace for Schiff, who had for decades enjoyed a reputation as a trusted art adviser to a roster of wealthy and occasionally famous clients before becoming trapped in a web of her own making.
Per the US Attorney’s office, Schiff in 2018 launched what amounted to a Ponzi scheme, using money given to her by roughly a dozen clients to purchase artworks, as well as that owed to clients from the sale of artworks, to fund her own lavish lifestyle, which is reported to have included a $20,000 birthday party for her son at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, a $100,000 summer house rental in the Hamptons, and the $2 million renovation of her rented TriBeCa office.
Schiff was first publicly accused of fraud in 2023 in two lawsuits, one filed by real estate heiress and collector Candace Carmel Barasch and collector Richard Grossman, and the other by Barasch and her husband, attorney Michael Barasch. The first suit alleged that Schiff had failed to pay the complainants $1.8 million she owed them for the sale of a $2.5 million Adrian Ghenie painting, while the second accused her of absconding with $6.6 million she had been given to buy art.
“For five years, Lisa Schiff breached the trust of her art advisory clients by diverting millions of dollars to pay her own business and personal expenses, and to fund a lavish lifestyle,” said acting US Attorney Matthew Podolsky in a statement. “Because of Schiff’s lies, and her illusory art advisory scam, Schiff will now serve a substantial sentence in prison.”
Schiff had faced a maximum penalty of twenty years in jail.