An art adviser to the stars who scammed her elite friends out of $6.4million to fund her high-flying lifestyle has opened up about her misery – as she faces 20 years behind bars.
Lisa Schiff boasted Leonardo DiCaprio and a real estate heiress among her high profile clients, before her entire scheme unraveled in 2023 when it was revealed she had been pocketing cash intended to purchase million-dollar paintings.
She herself lived a life of luxury, renting a $25,000-a-month TriBeCa loft, taking private helicopter journeys and enarmoring her wealthy clients with $32,000 shopping sprees at Loewe in Paris.
Speaking from her new two-bed apartment in Stuyvesant Town, where her rent is paid for by her parents, Schiff told the New York Times she was miserable even at the peak of her scam.
‘I was miserable in that helicopter. I was miserable in Loewe in my fancy outfit. At the end, I thought that I was going to have a stroke,’ she said.
‘I was a fake, a fraud every day.’
At the time, she didn’t consider herself a criminal. It was a thought she couldn’t allow herself to have, even as she pocketed millions of dollars from her unsuspecting friends.
She was buying and selling luxury artworks on behalf of her clients, and built a reputation for exquisite tastes – often identifying up and coming artists right before their value truly exploded.
Lisa Schiff boasted Leonardo DiCaprio and a real estate heiress among her high profile clients, before her entire scheme unraveled in 2023 when it was revealed she had been pocketing cash intended to purchase million-dollar paintings
She herself lived a life of luxury, renting a $25,000-a-month TriBeCa loft, taking private helicopter journeys and enarmoring her wealthy clients with $32,000 shopping sprees at Loewe in Paris
Schiff at her luxury Manhattan apartment, which she allegedly rented for $25,000 per month
Schiff had plied her trade at Phillips auction house in the 1990s and went on to become the director of an Upper East Side gallery before launching her own business in 2002.
‘It just got so big and I got so scared. I have a kid and I was just like, ”I can’t be a criminal”,’ she said. ‘I didn’t allow myself to even think that I was doing criminal behavior.’
Now facing 20 years behind bars, she has had to create a contingency plan for her son should she receive the maximum sentence. She said he will move in with her brother.
She declared bankruptcy and has switched front row seats at art shows for meetings with Alcoholics and Debtors Anonymous, writing and rewriting apology letters to her victims which her lawyer has instructed her not to send.
The art collection she spent years painstakingly acquiring for herself is being liquidated in an effort to reimburse up to a dozen victims some of their lost cash.
Her scam came crashing down in 2023, when she turned herself into authorities. By that time, she had defrauded her clients – some of whom she considered her ‘closest friends’ and had named godparents to her son – a total of $6.4million.
In October 2024, she pleaded guilty in Manhattan’s federal court.
Prosecutors said she ran what could effectively be described as an art Ponzi scheme beginning as early as 2018.
Schiff had plied her trade at Phillips auction house in the 1990s and went on to become the director of an Upper East Side gallery before launching her own business in 2002
Schiff is alleged to have defrauded two of her clients by refusing to pay fees owed following the sale of Adrian Ghenie’s The Uncle 3 (above) for $2.5million
One of Schiff’s accusers is her former friend and real-estate heiress Candace Barasch (left)
In all, 55 artworks were involved. She would divert her client’s profits from a sale of their art collection, or payments they’d made to purchase a piece, into her own personal or business accounts.
Then, she would tell clients that their art had not yet been sold, or that the art was on its way.
By the time she confessed to several of her clients, prosecutors said she ‘could no longer conceal her scheme due to mounting debts.’
Schiff is due to be sentenced on March 19.
Wendy Lindstrom, a lawyer representing seven of Schiff’s defrauded clients, told the Times that the art adviser is not remorseful.
‘Any attempt by Lisa Schiff to portray herself as remorseful is disingenuous at best,’ she said.
