Jail For Sotheby's Ex-Chairman

Former Sotheby's Chairman A. Alfred Taubman was sentenced Monday to a year in prison and fined $7.5 million for taking part in a price-fixing scheme that scandalized the auction industry.

Taubman, 78, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge George Daniels in Manhattan for overcharging Sotheby's sellers $43.8 million over six years.

Prosecutors had asked that Taubman be sentenced to three years in prison. His lawyers had sought probation.

"Regardless of what height we may attain in life, no one is above the law," said the judge in handing down the sentence. "Price-fixing is a crime whether it is committed in a local grocery store or the halls of a great auction house."

Taubman was convicted Dec. 5 of conspiracy to violate antitrust laws in the scheme that prosecutors said involved his counterpart, Anthony Tennant, at rival Christie's auction house.

The Justice Department said the men colluded on how much to charge, depriving the sellers of the opportunity to bargain for a lower price. The two auction houses control more than 90 percent of the world's art auctions.

Tennant, 71, of Andover, England, has refused to come to the United States to face trial. He cannot be extradited on antitrust charges.

Taubman's lawyers had claimed prison would worsen the health of their 78-year-old client, who has heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and renal failure.

"Mr. Taubman's once stellar reputation, which took him decades of incredibly hard work and humanity to build, has been shattered, literally overnight. The humiliation he has endured is simply indescribable," his lawyers wrote in pre-sentencing papers.

The government acknowledged that Taubman's charitable and civic contributions were generous and substantial, but said they were not unusual for a man worth more than $640 million.

During the trial, Taubman's lawyers portrayed him as someone who dozed off in important meetings and lacked a grasp of finance needed for a complex conspiracy. Prosecutors had sought three years behind bars.

Taubman, wearing earphones to help him hear the proceeding, expressed no emotion as Judge Daniels faulted him for portraying himself as a victim of a "vicious scheme" by subordinates who later turned on him to save themselves from prison.

"There is a lack of contrition demonstrated here," said Daniels.

Taubman, of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., made no statement in court or afterward. He has been ordered to report to prison on Aug. 1.

Ralph T. Giordano, chief of the New York office of the Justice Department's antitrust division, which prosecuted the case, said: "The sentence speaks for itself. There's nothing we could add to what the judge said."