Recidivist Fraudster Arrested For Stealing Gustave Courbet Painting

United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, announced the unsealing of an Indictment charging THOMAS DOYLE, a/k/a “AJ” or “Austin Doyle,” with wire fraud in connection with an alleged scheme by DOYLE to defraud the owner of the painting “Mother and Child on a Hammock” by the 19^th-century French Realist painter Gustave Courbet.  DOYLE was previously convicted in the Southern District of New York in 2011 of a separate art-related fraud.  DOYLE was arrested yesterday morning in Norwalk, Connecticut, and presented in the Southern District of New York.  The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian. 

“The art market is largely based on trust,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton.  “As alleged, Thomas Doyle breached that trust by telling the owner of a valuable painting a series of brazen lies to trick the owner into giving him the painting so he could keep the profits from the sale of the painting for himself.  The women and men of the Southern District of New York and our law enforcement partners will continue to work diligently to root out this type of bad actor.”

As alleged in the Indictment unsealed yesterday in Manhattan federal court:

Between December 2022 and March 2025, DOYLE defrauded an art dealer (“Victim-1”) in connection with the sale of the painting “Mother and Child on a Hammock” (the “Hammock”) by Gustave Courbet.  In December 2022, DOYLE introduced himself to Victim-1 over email, representing himself to be in the business of buying and selling art.  Over the next few years, DOYLE and Victim-1 communicated over email and WhatsApp Messenger regarding artworks, and DOYLE made various misrepresentations to Victim-1 about himself, including falsely stating that he managed the “art side” of a family trust with assets worth billions of dollars.

In June 2024, DOYLE and Victim-1 began discussing the Hammock, which Victim-1 owned and was selling.  Victim-1 agreed to let DOYLE take custody of the Hammock to facilitate its viewing by a potential buyer.

In or about July 2024, DOYLE told Victim-1 that he had a potential buyer for the Hammock, and Victim-1 authorized DOYLE to sell the painting on his behalf for $550,000.  By early August 2024, DOYLE falsely informed Victim-1 that he had sold the Hammock for that price.

Instead, DOYLE’s associate (“Associate-1”), acting on DOYLE’s behalf, offered the Hammock for consignment to a Manhattan gallery (“Gallery-1”).  DOYLE provided Associate-1  with a false provenance for the Hammock that was passed on to Gallery-1, stating, among other things, that the Hammock had been purchased from Victim-1 in 2019.  Gallery-1 sold the Hammock on October 1, 2024, for $125,000 to an art collector.  On October 3, 2024, Gallery-1 wired $115,000, which were the sale proceeds of the Hammock minus commission, to Associate-1.  That same day, Associate-1 paid DOYLE $109,250 for the Hammock.

DOYLE never remitted to Victim-1 any proceeds from the sale of the Hammock.  By February 2025, DOYLE had spent all the proceeds from the sale of the Hammock on personal expenses and his own debts.  DOYLE subsequently falsely blamed his failure to pay Victim-1 on the purported buyer, fraudulently claiming the buyer had yet to pay when in fact DOYLE had been paid and was spending the proceeds of the Hammock sale.

On March 4, 2025, DOYLE admitted by email to Victim-1 that DOYLE had “betrayed” and “lied” to Victim-1 about the Hammock.

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DOYLE, 68, of Connecticut, is charged with one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum prison term of 20 years.

The maximum potential sentence in this case is prescribed by Congress and provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the judge.

Mr. Clayton praised the outstanding work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Art Crime Team.

This case is being handled by the Office’s Illicit Finance and Money Laundering Unit.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Cecilia Vogel is in charge of the prosecution.