[CPProt.net] Ken Walton Writes Tell-All Book on Diebenkorn eBay Fraud Case

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Ken Walton Writes Tell-All Book on Diebenkorn eBay Fraud Case
By Ina Steiner
AuctionBytes.com 
September 14, 2005  
Kenneth Walton, who pled guilty to fraud in the infamous Diebenkorn art
fraud case involving forged art and shill bidding on eBay, will be
recounting his exploits in a tell-all tale called, "Fake: Forgery, Lies, And
Ebay - How one man's con game created an international scandal and triggered
a nationwide FBI manhunt." 

Walton got an agent and signed the book deal after eBay forced him to sell
his company HammerTap, a company that provided tools for eBay sellers
(http://digbig.com/4epgs). 

On March 8, 2001, a federal grand jury in Sacramento returned an indictment
against Ken Walton, Ken Fetterman and Scott Beach, charging them with
participating in a scheme to fraudulently bid on hundreds of art auctions on
eBay, including one in which an eBay user was induced to bid over $135,805
for a fake Richard Diebenkorn painting. The indictment alleged that the
defendants created more than 40 User IDs on eBay using false registration
information, and then used those aliases to place fraudulent bids to
artificially inflate the prices of literally hundreds of paintings they
auctioned on eBay from November 1998 to June 2000.

Kenneth Walton and Scott Beach pled guilty on April 17, 2001, to one count
of wire fraud and three counts of mail fraud and in return agreed to testify
against their cohort Kenneth Fetterman. 

Fetterman fled to Lake Tahoe and was on the run for nearly two years before
he was nabbed in Wichita, on his way to a Frisbee tournament
(http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-05-27-ebay-art-fraud_x.htm). 

According to a 2004 Media Bistro blog entry (http://digbig.com/4epfp), the
book was originally going to be called, "FAKE! Forgery, Lies, and eBay Or,
How I Learned to Commit Art Fraud which Sparked an International Scandal
that Rocked the eBay Universe." The blog said of the book, "The author
traces how he went from being a relatively normal middle-class kid with a
young law practice to being on the front page of the New York Times at the
center of an international scandal, revealing the vagaries of the art world,
the seduction of eBay selling, and the tricks of his mind that allowed him
to rationalize his growing fraudulent behavior."

Walton sold HammerTap in February 2004, and his book deal was fodder for
book-industry blogs by November.

Simon Spotlight Entertainment is publishing the book, which is due out in
April 2006 and is priced at $21.95. A call to the publisher to learn more
was not returned. 
  


http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y05/m09/i14/s01