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- US judge jails Indonesian wine forger for 10 years
- Updated today at 01:50 AM
- NEW YORK (AFP) - Indonesian wine forger Rudy Kurniawan was sentenced on Thursday to 10 years in prison after he was found guilty of manufacturing fake vintages and selling them for millions of dollars.
- The 37-year-old, once considered one of the top five wine collectors in the world, was convicted in December of blending hundreds of bottles in his kitchen and selling them as rare vintages.
- After less than two hours of deliberations, a New York jury had also convicted him of fraudulently obtaining a US$3 million (S$3.7 milllion) loan.
- The two convictions carried a maximum sentence of 20 years each.
- It has been an astonishingly fall from grace for a man once considered one of the top five wine collectors in the exclusive world of vintage wine, but who has no legal status in the US.
- He built his success on an exceptional palate, capable of identifying and memorising the world's finest wines beloved by the richest people on the planet.
- But he was found guilty of defrauding buyers and collectors from 2004 through 2012 by selling counterfeit bottles of purportedly rare and expensive wine.
- Prosecutors branded him an arch liar motivated by greed, a man who made millions of dollars selling bogus vintages blended in the California home he shared with his Chinese mother.
- The allegations against Kurniawan surfaced over an April 2008 auction in New York where he had offered 97 purported bottles of Domaine Ponsot for sale for between US$440,500 and US$602,000.
- But French expert Laurent Ponsot, of the acclaimed Domaine Ponsot winery, became suspicious and flew to New York to ensure that auction house Acker Merrall & Condit withdrew the lot.
- After allegedly trying to sell more dubious wine at auction in London via an intermediary in 2012, Kurniawan was arrested.
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