A longtime assistant to artist Jasper Johns who used his position of trust to steal unfinished artworks from his boss’s Connecticut studio was sentenced Thursday to 18 months in prison after expressing deep regret for betraying a man “who was my mentor, employer and friend since I was 21 years old.”
During a hearing at Federal District Court in Manhattan, Judge J. Paul Oetken ordered the former assistant, James Meyer, 53 – who arranged to have 37 pieces sold through a New York gallery – to pay restitution of more than $13 million.
“I took for granted and betrayed someone who will forever have great meaning in my life,” Mr. Meyer haltingly said before his sentence was handed down. “For that, I have profound remorse.”
Mr. Meyer, who also apologized for the damage to his family, notably his wife and two children, pleaded guilty last August to one count of interstate transportation of stolen goods as part of a deal with federal prosecutors. The agreement stipulated a sentencing guideline range of 37 to 46 months in prison, but Judge Oetken opted for the 18-months that had been recommended by the probation department.
Mr. Meyer, of Salisbury, Conn., was indicted in 2013 for stealing art from Mr. Johns’s studio in Sharon, Conn., between Sept. 2006 and Feb. 2012, much of it from a file drawer he maintained for the artist. Prosecutors said he told the gallery owner who sold them on his behalf that the pieces had been gifts from Mr. Johns.
As part of the scheme, Mr. Meyer, among other things, provided sworn certifications that the pieces were authentic works by Mr. Johns and that Mr. Meyer was the legal owner of each. Under the sale agreements, purchasers were required to refrain from loaning, exhibiting or reselling the art for at least eight years so as to keep their ownership private.
The prosecutor said the stolen works fetched about $10 million, roughly $4 million of which went directly to Mr. Meyer, who had worked for Mr. Johns for more than 25 years. Mr. Meyer was ordered to forfeit the amount he made from the sales.
The judge gave Mr. Meyer until mid-July to turn himself over to prison authorities and described him as a humble and kind man who, though he had committed “a serious offense,” had been of significant help to prosecutors.