Ex-doctor is found guilty in art scam

LOS ANGELES -- A former Massachusetts doctor who sold a phony Mary Cassatt Impressionist painting to undercover detectives was found guilty yesterday of attempted grand theft.

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury convicted Vilas Likhite of Mission Viejo, Calif., who is expected to be arraigned next week and faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

Likhite was a Belmont physician and professor at Harvard before moving to California in the 1980s.

He was arrested in December 2004 after he tried to sell the Cassatt painting to two detectives who were posing as a Korean businessman and an interpreter. Likhite claimed the painting was worth $800,000.

The detectives bought the piece before arresting Likhite on the grand-theft charge.

Likhite was previously convicted in Massachusetts in 1989 of selling two fake pieces to an investment banker and a fellow physician. He was sentenced to probation.

California authorities said his collection included fakes of paintings by Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, and others.

He claimed the collection of more than 700 paintings was worth more than $1 billion.

The Los Angeles Police Department's Art Theft Detail unit became aware of Likhite after two businessmen said he had asked them to work as brokers and help him find potential buyers.

One of the businessmen said he took some of Likhite's paintings to a professional art dealer, who deemed them fakes, according to authorities.