Leslie Howard Roberts, 63, received the sentence this month in Miami federal court after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He must also repay nearly $2.6 million he earned through the scheme.

Roberts owned Miami Fine Art Gallery. Prosecutors said he falsely claimed that artworks came directly from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and supplied fraudulent invoices to support their supposed authenticity.

“[H]e exploited the trust that collectors place in art dealers and the authenticity of the works they purchase,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason Reding Quiñones said in a statement.

Court records describe a second participant, Carlos Rodriguez Melendez, who investigators said posed as an employee of a New York auction company and falsely authenticated artwork to help hide that it was forged. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud last year and was sentenced to probation.

Roberts was arrested in April 2025. His case follows another South Florida prosecution involving counterfeit Warhols: Daniel Elie Bouaziz, who operated two galleries in Palm Beach County, was sentenced in 2023 to two years and three months in prison. Bouaziz had pleaded guilty to money laundering; prosecutors agreed to drop 16 other charges related to fraud and embezzlement.