An art adviser of the stars who scored her elite friends from $ 6.4 million to finance her high -flying lifestyle has been opened about her new misery – because she is confronted for 20 years behind bars.
Lisa Schiff leaned Leonardo DiCaprio and a real estate heiress among her high -profile customers, before her entire schedule unraveled in 2023 when it was revealed that she had meant cash in her pocket to buy paintings of a million dollars.
She lived a life of luxury herself, rented a Tribeca loft of $ 25,000 a month, takes private helicopter trips and finished her rich customers with $ 32,000 stores at Loewe in Paris.
Speaking from her new apartment with two beds in Stuyvesant Town, where her rent is paid by her parents, Schiff told the New York Times that she even felt miserable at the height of her scam.
“I felt miserable in that helicopter. I felt miserable in Loewe in my beautiful outfit. At the end I thought I was going to get a stroke, “she said.
“I was a fake, fraud every day.”
At that time she did not consider herself a criminal. It was a thought that she could not allow herself, even while she dropped millions of dollars from her unsuspecting friends.
She bought and sold luxury artworks on behalf of her customers, and built up a reputation for beautiful flavors – often she identified emerging artists just before their value really exploded.
Lisa Schiff leaned Leonardo DiCaprio and a real estate heiress among her controversial customers, before her entire schedule unraveled in 2023 when it was unveiled
She lived a life of luxury herself, rented a Tribeca loft of $ 25,000 a month, takes private helicopter trips and ememing its rich customers with $ 32,000 stores at Loewe in Paris
Schiff in her luxury apartment in Manhattan, which she reportedly rented for $ 25,000 a month
Schiff had placed her trade in the Phillips auction House in the 1990s and became the director of a gallery in Upper East Side before launching her own company in 2002.
“It just got so big and I got so scared. I have a child and I had something like that: “I can't be a criminal,” she said. “I didn't even allow myself to think that I did criminal behavior.”
Now that they have been behind bars for 20 years, she has had to prepare an unforeseen plan for her son if she gets the maximum punishment. She said he would withdraw from her brother.
She declared bankruptcy and has switched Van Stoel in the front row on art shows for meetings with alcoholics and debtors anonymously, the writing and rewriting of apologetic letters to her victims that her lawyer has instructed not to send her.
The art collection that she has spent for years for herself is liquidated in an attempt to repay a dozen victims of their lost money.
Her scam crashed in 2023, when she turned herself into the authorities. By that time she had cheated on her clients – of whom they considered some of her 'best friends' and named godparents after her son – a total of $ 6.4 million.
In October 2024 she argued guilty of the federal court of Manhattan.
Justice officers said she was walking which could be effectively described as an Art Ponzi schedule that started at the beginning of 2018.
Schiff had placed her trade in the Phillips auction House in the 1990s and became the director of a gallery in Upper East Side before launching her own company in 2002
Schiff is said to have cheated two of its customers by refusing to pay fees that owe after the sale of Adrian Ghenie's The Uncle 3 (above) for $ 2.5 million
One of Schiff's accusators is her former friend and real estate heiresse Candace Barasch (left)
A total of 55 works of art were involved. She would distract the profit from her customer from a sale of their art collection, or payments they had made to buy a piece, to her own personal or business accounts.
Then she would tell customers that their art had not yet been sold, or that the art was on the road.
By the time she confessed to several of her customers, public prosecutors said that “she could no longer hide her scheme due to increasing debts.”
Schiff will be convicted on March 19.
Wendy Lindstrom, a lawyer who represents seven of Schiff's cheated clients, told The Times that the art adviser does not repent.
“Every attempt by Lisa Schiff to paint himself as a repentance is at his pretty unfair,” she said.
