Imelda Marcos hoarded shoes. And her former personal secretary in New York hoarded tens of millions of dollars in ill-gotten Monets, according to a new indictment.
Vilma Bautista, 74, hid and then sold four valuable Impressionist paintings that had disappeared from the Philippine Consulate townhouse in Manhattan after the Marcos regime toppled in 1986, prosecutors said today.
Bautista hobbled into a Manhattan courtroom gripping a cane with both hands, and pleaded not guilty to tax fraud, conspiracy and offering a false instrument for filing.
In conspiracy with two nephews from Bankok, Thailand, she sold Claude Monet’s 1899 “Water-Lily” painting in Sept. 2010 for $32 million after hiding it for two decades, according to DA Cyrus Vance, Jr.
She similarly hid and eventually sold a second Monet, plus paintings by Alfred Sisley and Albert Marquet, despite knowing that the Philippine government sought all four works, the DA said. Bautista never disclosed the sale income in her tax returns, depriving the state of millions of dollars in tax revenue, Vance said.
Officials said the investigation into the Marcos art sale conspiracy is continuing.