It took a Manhattan jury less than three hours Monday to convict the former secretary of shoe-obsessed deposed Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos of stealing a Claude Monet painting and selling it for $32 million.
“More than 25 years after these masterwork paintings were looted, it took a jury two-and-a-half hours to come back with a guilty verdict against the woman who conspired to steal them,” said District Attorney Cy Vance. “Vilma Bautista was found guilty of attempting to sell art she had possessed secretly for decades and knew to be stolen, and for selling a looted museum-quality painting for her personal enrichment.”
Bautista, 75, was found guilty in Manhattan Supreme Court on all three counts: tax fraud, conspiracy and offering a false instrument for filing.
She stole four pieces of art from Marco’s Upper East Side townhouse in 1985. With the help of a pair of relatives who were also found guilty, Bautista sold Monet’s 1899 “Water-Lily Pond” for $32 million to a London art gallery in 2010. The gallery then sold the painting for $43 million to billionaire UK hedge fund manager Alan Howard who thought the painting was legit, his spokesman has said.
The pricey piece was just one of four paintings Bautista was convicted of stealing and hiding for decades. The other valuable works include Monet’s “L’Englise et La Seine a Vetheuil,” Alfred Sisley’s “Langland Bay” and Albert Marquet’s “Le Cypres de Djenan Sidi Said.”
The current Philippines government has embarked on a campaign to recover valuable works of art that were acquired by Marcos and her late husband, Ferdinand Marcos, during their contentious reign.
“At bottom this case is really quite simple — it’s about greed and fraud,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Garrett Lynch told jurors at the opening of the conspiracy and tax fraud trial.
Bautista’s defense argued at trial that she had a certificate of authority from the 84-year-old Marcos to sell the paintings on her behalf.
Attorney Susan Hoffinger argued that her client, who was not in court for the verdict after being taken to a hospital Friday over a heart ailment, had written permission from 1991 to deal the works but hadn’t gotten around to turning the proceeds over to Marcos.
“Vilma Bautista has been made a scapegoat in this political struggle,” she said.
But the jury didn’t buy it and now the elderly one-time confidante of Marcos faces as much as 25 years in prison on the top count.
Bautista’s two relatives Chaiyot Jansen Navalaksana, 37 and Pongsak Navalaksana, 40, were found guilty of illegally conspiring to sell the stolen works. They fled to Thailand before the trial began.