An art forger who duped collectors in the US and Europe while working under the alias “River Seine” has been sentenced to 52 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud.
Earl Marshawn Washington was sentenced Tuesday (2 April) in Pennsylvania for a series of crimes stretching back to 2013, in which he and a succession of romantic partners created woodblock prints and sold them to collectors as authentic, centuries-old works. According to some reports, his peddling of fake historical prints, including M.C. Escher forgeries, began in the late 1990s.
Washington was first charged in January 2023, but after agreeing to a plea deal, the original charges against him were dismissed and the present charges filed; he pleaded guilty in July 2023. His ex-wife, Zsanett Nagy, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering in August 2023; she was sentenced to time served but faces potential deportation to her native Hungary.
In one instance, Washington promised a pair of print collectors in France a group of 15 prints described as “15th.C Reformation/Lutheran wood blocks”, according to the District Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. The French collectors sent nearly $85,000 in payments to Washington and Nagy via the latter’s PayPal account before learning that these were not authentic, historical woodblock prints.
A collector of woodblock prints in Pennsylvania bought about 130 woodblocks from Washington and his girlfriend at the time between 2013 and 2016, paying the pair $118,810 in all. Operating under his favoured alias “River Seine”, Washington told the Pennsylvania collector that he was selling “original printing blocks from the 16th and 17th centuries”.
In addition to his 52-month prison sentence, Washington has been ordered to pay $203,240.90 in restitution to his victims. He will also serve three years of supervised release after his prison term. As part of Nagy’s sentencing, she was ordered to pay her victims $107,159.25 in restitution.
Washington was “previously a resident of Honolulu, Key West, Las Vegas and other places”, according to the District Attorney’s office. He was represented by Lori J. Ulrich, a federal public defender who, in court filings quoted by USA Today, described Washington as “his own worst enemy”.
The prosecutor in Washington’s case was Ravi Romel Sharma, an assistant US Attorney. The case was investigated by the Philadelphia division of the FBI’s Art Crime Team, with assistance from the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs, France’s Ministry of Justice and national police, Germany’s federal police and the criminal police for the state of Saxony.
