Ex-Sotheby’s Chief Pleads Guilty

Diana Brooks was at home on center stage in the tony world of high-priced art. As chief executive of Sotheby’s, she often conducted the biggest, highest-profile auctions — like the sale of Kennedy family treasures — herself. Brooks, the first woman to head a major auction house and one of the most powerful figures in the art world over the past decade, today took center stage in a far grittier place. The 50-year-old pleaded guilty to bilking hundreds of wealthy art patrons out of tens of millions of dollars.Admitting it had ripped off clients for years, the venerable Sotheby’s also pleaded guilty to fixing commission prices and fees with rival Christie’s. The pleas follow a three-year federal investigation of the auction houses. “Those charged engaged in classic cartel behavior,” said A. Douglas Melamed, acting U.S. assistant attorney general. He said it was “price-fixing, pure and simple.” The cartel consisted of auction houses that were archrivals for three centuries, but even archrivals, it seems, can find a common bond. Investigators say Sotheby’s and Christie’s collaborated to fix prices for both buyers and sellers of expensive art works. The two giants have agreed to pay more than $500 million in fines to settle civil lawsuits spawned by their actions. Brooks, who could go to prison for up to three years and will certainly pay a fine, will testify against Sotheby’s former chairman and her former boss, A. Alfred Taubman.