A string of lawsuits, a federal raid, a grand jury indictment and now an arrest have pulled the curtain on Grove gallery owner Leslie Roberts.
When federal agents swarmed into Miami Fine Art Gallery in Coconut Grove this month, some members of the Miami art community had a muted reaction.
Those who knew the owner, Leslie Roberts, and the allegations against him, weren’t particularly shocked to see FBI agents pitching blue-canopied tents and hauling off artwork from the pop-art showroom.
Indeed, claims had been piling up that Roberts had bilked clients by selling them counterfeits of works by Warhol and the video-game-themed artist Invader. Three fraud lawsuits remain open against Roberts in Miami-Dade circuit court, accusing him of dealing in fake art and failing to deliver works despite receiving payment.
The day of the raid, April 9, Roberts was arrested on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. A grand jury indictment charged him with selling phony Warhol pieces and deploying two associates posing as New York auction-house appraisers to vouch for the works in an elaborate coverup.
The indictment was returned three weeks after the Spotlight published a story recounting the fraud claims against Roberts – and how a relentless stream of promotional articles singing his praises had drowned out news coverage of the pending allegations as well as his guilty plea in a 2014 art fraud case.
In a March interview inside the now-shuttered gallery, Roberts maintained that he ran a clean operation and was being unfairly vilified over his past.
“I’ve had to be squeaky clean since the 2014 case,” Roberts said.
He has not responded to multiple requests for comment since the raid.
Though the FBI fleet has withdrawn from Commodore Plaza, and the gallery walls are bare, questions linger about Roberts’ tenure in the Grove and how he was able to line up high-priced art sales year after year in spite of the wave of fraud claims.
In conversations with the Spotlight, gallery owners in Miami weighed in on the saga and Roberts’ drive to resurrect himself on the South Florida art scene before federal agents descended on his gallery.
When the Spotlight asked Bernice Steinbaum — a famed Grove gallerist — about her reaction to Roberts’ arrest, she had a succinct response: “The only thing I can tell you is: Welcome to Florida.”
Art in Limbo
One Miami art dealer tells the Spotlight that he had items on consignment with Roberts at the time of the raid and is uncertain whether the FBI confiscated the pieces.
The dealer says he was aware of Roberts’ conviction at the time he consigned the artwork but “thought Roberts had learned his lesson.”
“I’m not sure I’m going to see my money anymore. I haven’t heard from him in two weeks now,” laments the dealer, who asked that his name not be published for fear of repercussions for his business. “I don’t have access to my inventory – that’s my concern.”
The dealer says Roberts was a marketing expert and took advantage of a “fantastic” location on Commodore Plaza, sandwiched between popular restaurants and shops near Grand Avenue. One of only a few surviving full-scale galleries in the Grove, Miami Fine Art sat in a prime spot for foot traffic, tourist walk-ins, and commercial curb appeal.
“If you deal in the city where you live, you’re aware of this kind of story in the art world. But if you came into Miami spending one week and you didn’t look at the local news, you just saw how amazing the location is,” he says.
Roberts’ past and present legal troubles have been recounted in news articles available online. But before the raid, a string of recent promotional articles was suppressing that coverage on search queries, including a press release calling Roberts a “visionary” and a widely read Artnet Q&A referring to Miami Fine Art Gallery as “a bastion of historic and contemporary art.”
Prior to the raid, Evan Nierman, founder of crisis-management firm Red Banyan, confirmed with the Spotlight that recent news coverage about fraud claims pending against Roberts – and past coverage of his 2014 art fraud case — were nowhere to be found in the initial search results when users queried Google for “Les Roberts Miami.”
Nierman said it was a good example of how well-written promotional material can drown out negative articles even when the coverage pertains to serious criminal offenses. (He suggested Roberts was also benefitting from using his nickname Les, in place of Leslie, as the latter pulled up more negative articles when entered into search queries.)
Roberts continued to draw customers and host exhibitions at the gallery following a New York Times story, published in August 2024, detailing a high-profile lawsuit accusing him of cheating Miami real estate investor Richard Perlman and his family out of millions of dollars on fake Warhol works.
Though the criminal indictment did not reveal the victims’ names in the criminal case, the allegations and timeline mirror those in the Perlmans’ lawsuit.
The Perlmans’ lawyer previously told the Spotlight that his clients “had no idea about Roberts’ past.”
“They visited his gallery in Miami and developed a business relationship. The Perlmans trusted his expertise – what happened was nothing short of a betrayal,” Luke Nikas said.
Roberts denied the allegations in the prior interview.
“I’ve offered to help recoup their funds but it will take time,” he said. “I can’t sell millions of dollars of art in one week.”
The art dealer with works on consignments with Roberts says he learned of the Perlmans’ case last year and found the allegations so egregious that he resigned himself to the possibility Roberts had never turned over a new leaf.
Steinbaum, who has run galleries from SoHo to Wynwood to Coconut Grove, doesn’t believe Roberts would have been able to maintain clientele in other big-city art hubs in the U.S. in light of his past conviction and fraud lawsuits.
“This would have never flown in New York,” she says. “Down here, we don’t have that kind of coverage and critics writing up the various galleries. In Miami, people can slip under the radar.”
“It was like a Hollywood opening”
Peter Studl, a local artist and retired lawyer who used to run a gallery next to Roberts’ Miami Fine Art location, describes Roberts as a “good salesman with a non-threatening personality,” who appears knowledgeable about contemporary art.
“Les could be convincing. Giving a big discount on what would be a valuable market-established work seems to make the sale,” Studl recalled.
Prior to the raid, Roberts would routinely host well-attended soirees with a DJ pumping music at Miami Fine Art Gallery.
“He literally rolled out a red carpet, had a doorman, red velvet ropes on brass-plated posts,” says Studl. “People came for the party, the ‘glitz,’ and photos. Some left with art; he had some nice pieces. Glamor and bragging rights sometimes drive the art purchase. At times, it was like a Hollywood opening.”
Roberts’ $140,000 Bentley remained a common sight around the gallery prior to the FBI raid.
Roberts’ gift of persuasion apparently dates back to his youth.
In 1986, a New York Times article, “Whiz-Kid Broker’s Downfall,” chronicled fraud charges against Roberts, who was in his early 20s at the time, for churning commissions and draining $9 million from his uncle’s savings while he was managing the funds as a licensed broker.
His great-aunt told the Times that Roberts was a “charming conniver,” and had once produced a phony report card with straight A’s after he dropped out of college.
Studl says he was taken aback that reputable art publications promoted Roberts. Those that touted Roberts with no mention of the fraud allegations helped him maintain a veneer of legitimacy, Studl claims.
“They legitimized his dubious credentials by publishing the pablum they were fed without the most basic fact checking,” says Studl, who is involved in efforts to revitalize the Grove art scene.
Steinbaum adds that buyers need to be wary as Warhol pieces are some of the most frequently counterfeit in the pop-art world.
“One has to be suspect because Andy Warhols are a certain price,” she says. “I’m not surprised that this happened. I just want to give a warning that if you’re buying a five, ten, thirty-thousand-dollar piece of art, you should be willing to do some homework as the client.”
What’s Next
The FBI spokesperson declined to answer questions about Roberts, saying they do not comment on active cases.
Roberts’ arraignment is scheduled for April 22 in Miami federal court.
Carlos Miguel Rodriguez Melendez, one of the associates who allegedly posed as a New York auction house staffer, is also charged with wire fraud conspiracy in the case.
A third defendant’s name has been redacted in the federal court documents.
Roberts is facing a maximum of 20 years in prison on the conspiracy charge and base wire fraud charges, and a maximum of 10 years on the money laundering counts.
Meanwhile, his landlord, Avenue Grouper Art, is moving to terminate his $19,000-a-month lease for Miami Fine Art Gallery. The landlord filed an eviction action on April 14 demanding that he vacate the premises.
Roberts re-filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy on April Fool’s Day, the day of his indictment. He had filed an earlier bankruptcy petition in 2023, but that case was dismissed in January due to his alleged failure to abide by the payment plan.
The new bankruptcy filing caused two of the pending lawsuits against him, including the Perlmans’ lawsuit, to be automatically stayed.
The Perlmans and their company, SOFLAC Associates, are now arguing that Roberts is abusing the bankruptcy process to stall the fraud claims.
“The debtor is abusing the judicial process to frustrate the ability of the SOFLAC parties and other claimants to prosecute and recover on their claims against him for his art fraud,” the Perlmans allege in an April 18 bankruptcy court filing.
