He promised money, or at least a restitution plan: broken.
He promised to meet with and help some of his two-dozen victims: broken.
He promised to go to alcohol rehab: broken.
But admitted $120 million art swindler Lawrence Salander got yet another free pass from a generous judge yesterday — when the judge declined prosecutors’ vehement demand that he be thrown in jail immediately.
“I do not view the defendant as having violated his bail conditions,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus said in letting a smiling Salander walk cheerfully out of his courtroom.
Obus set a sentencing date of August 3; if Salander still hasn’t paid back any of the $120 million, which even the judge conceded was unlikely, he faces a maximum sentence on that day of six years prison.
“The alcohol was killing me!” Salander, 61, said, jovially, when a female reporter told him his appearance had improved after what he’d described as his 60 days of sobriety. “You look good, too,” he chirped.
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.
“The victims don’t want his assistance; they’re exhausted by his games,” Schulman told the judge.
But Salander’s lawyer, Charles Ross, argued that his client “Is trying” to come up with some bucks.
“Mr. Salander really is trying,” the lawyer told the judge. “He’s making a good faith effort to contact friends and clients that he knows, to make restitution.
“I can’t stand here today and say it’s going to happen,” the lawyer added. “But it’s still possible.”
Ross did not elaborate on how Salander, given his bankruptcy and swindling record, would ever manage to convince anyone to throw him anywhere near $120 million — with no chance of a return on their money.
Prosecutors declined to comment on the judge’s decision after court.