Update: Salander Dodges Jail...For Now

The New York Post and other outlets are reporting that discredited art dealer Lawrence Salander will not immediately be going to jail. The prosecution wanted him jailed for failure to repay those he defrauded of an admitted $120 million. The judge thought better to wait until at least August to sentence Salander. Salander could be sentenced up to six years in prison.

The NY Post reports

The judge's generosity followed a prosecutor's nearly half-hour long listing of Salander's broken promises to the court in the three months since he pleaded guilty to a massive, decade-long swindle that rocked the East Coast art world.

Among his victims were John MacEnroe, who lost a $2 million investment in two of Salander's Arshile Gorky paintings back in 2005, and Robert De Niro, who lost two paintings valued at a total $77,000, entrusted to Salander by the actor's father, a noted abstract painter.

Salander is still swindling, still working his Ponzi scheme, complained prosecutor Micki Shulman.

He'd convinced the judge to let him remain free so he could lean on friends for cash, go to rehab, assist in the bankruptcy proceedings against him and help his victims find the paintings he'd sold out from under them, Schulman.

Instead, he hasn't even come up with a plan to pay any of the money back, the prosecutor complained. He's been of no help in bankruptcy proceedings, welched on his only appointment to meet with a victim, and has now declared himself too sober for rehab, she complained.

To read the full NY Post article, click HERE.