Lisa Schiff, “art advisor” to stars including Leonardo DiCaprio, pleads guilty to $6.5 million fraud

A Manhattan talent consultant who worked with actor Leonardo DiCaprio and other stars pleaded guilty Thursday to wire fraud — admitting to stealing $6.5 million from more than a dozen clients over five years.

Lisa Schiff, 54, pocketed all of the profits from the sale of her clients’ artwork in lieu of just commissions – while keeping them in the dark about the transactions – and used the ill-gotten profits to live off widely, according to federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

The admitted fraudster also promised to use some clients’ money to buy art, but instead squandered the funds to pay personal and business expenses and to pay off massive debts, prosecutors said.

Schiff’s fraudulent scheme involved 55 works of art and ran from at least 2018 until May 2023, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

She defrauded at least twelve clients, an artist, another artist’s estate and a gallery, totaling at least $6.5 million, prosecutors said.

“Instead of using client funds as promised, Schiff used the stolen money to finance a lavish lifestyle,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.

Lawyers for several of his victims wrote in a filing in Manhattan bankruptcy court this week that Schiff spent the stolen funds on luxuries such as a $25,000-a-month apartment, European shopping sprees in designer boutiques and a vacation to Greece where she rented an apartment. villa, yacht and helicopter.

She considered her clients’ funds to be “her personal piggy bank,” the lawyers write.

Schiff pleaded guilty during a hearing Thursday in Manhattan federal court. She agreed to forfeit $6.4 million and her sentencing, before Judge J. Paul Oetken, was set for Jan. 17.

The terms of her plea agreement call on prosecutors to recommend that she be sentenced to between 3.5 and 4.25 years in prison, although the maximum sentence for wire fraud is 20 years.

Her lawyer, Randy Zelin, said Schiff “will now work to show the court and the world that she has not only accepted responsibility, but is also remorseful.”

“She is honored,” he added. “She is willing to do anything to right the wrongs.”

Schiff’s art consulting business, Schiff Fine Art, served as an intermediary between art galleries and auction houses and his art collecting clients.

At times, Schiff lied to galleries by saying she had promised to purchase art using her clients’ money – falsely accusing her clients of “delays” in payment when she had failed to do so. made off with the funds, according to prosecutors.

Eventually, Schiff “could no longer hide her scheme due to mounting debts” and “confessed to several clients that she had stolen their money,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote in a press release.

Schiff also faced civil lawsuits from outraged clients like real estate heiress Candace Carmel Barasch and her husband, prominent Manhattan attorney Michael Barasch.

With post wires