Gérard Lhéritier, the French founder of the company Aristophil, who was once described as the “lord of letters and manuscripts”, has today (11 December) been been found guilty of gang fraud by a French court. He faces five years in prison.
Lhéritier’s lawyer, Benoït Verger, said his client will appeal the verdict. However, the court has ordered that the 77-year-old be held in jail while awaiting a new trial.
The court described Lhéritier, who was once the most important buyer on the manuscripts market, as the mastermind of the biggest Ponzi scheme to ever be uncovered in France. His business, which sold shares in manuscripts by the likes of Napoleon, Beethoven and Baudelaire, was said to be a “trap for its clients”.
Aristophil collected more than €850m over 12 years from 18,000 small investors, but went bankrupt after Lhéritier's arrest in 2015 and the seizure of his assets. The company was subsequently liquidated and the collection of 135,000 items was auctioned for €105m.
The court said Aristophil had lured investors by promising an 8% annual return. On an average, the clients recovered about 12% of their investment.
Speaking in the past about the case, Lhéritier described his system as “completely legal”, and claimed it was only the seizure of Aristophil’s assets and accounts that caused the company’s collapse.
“I only gave a fair price to masterworks which were clearly under-evaluated and predicted the continuous rise of a niche market,” he said. “But the state decided to destroy my company to get hold of the treasures I had found all around the world.”
Five other people, including Lhéritier’s notary, the brokers and a law professor from the Sorbonne, Jean-Jacques Daigre, were also given suspended sentences of one to two years.
