Receiver of 271 stolen Picasso artworks sentenced to jail for 2 years.
The president of the court of appeal confirmed the judgment of the court of Grasse rendered in 2015
"in all respects on the guilt as on the sentence pronounced"
against Pierre and Danielle Le Guennec, two years of prison with probation. The 80-year-old craftsman and his wife, 76, were absent when the judgment was delivered.
The couple had already been sentenced twice for the concealment of these drawings, lithographs, and other collages. They had obtained in cassation the annulment of the conviction by the Court of Appeal of Aix-en-Provence in December 2016. The prosecutor had not demonstrated that the works "came from a theft,".
The spouses assured that the works had been handed over to them by Picasso's widow, Jacqueline, after the death of the artist, at the moment when a conflict broke out with the painter's heirs. Later, Jacqueline would have asked them to return the bags, except one for which she said: "Keep it, it's for you".
"It's the triumph of the truth and the end of a mystification," reacted Mr. Jean-Jacques Neuer, the lawyer of the son of the painter, Claude Ruiz-Picasso, estimating that Pierre Le Guennec played for the account of art dealers "the role played by mules in the area of drug trafficking".
These 271 works of Picasso had resurfaced in 2010 when Mr. Le Guennec had introduced himself to Mr. Ruiz-Picasso, to authenticate a part, including a notebook of 91 sketches, all dating from 1900 to 1932.
AFP post
