TB Investigates

Media Not Reporting That Husband Of Missing Cohasset Woman Is A Scam Artist Who’s Been Federally Charged With Selling Fake Andy Warhol Paintings 

 

 

Editor’s Note: We discussed this story on the Live Show (1:11:10)

There’s a missing rich white woman from Cohasset and it’s dominating the news today. This is 39 year old mother of 3 Ana Walshe.

She’s an immigrant from Eastern Europe who’s married to a guy named Brian Walshe.

The two of them appear to be loaded because they live in a nice house in Cohasset, and evidently own more property in Washington DC. Her social media is filled with glamorous pictures of them traveling the world, driving luxury cars, shopping, and being fabulous.

They’ve been featured in Boston Magazine, and Brian has been featured in the Boston Globe as an “a Boston-based international art dealer.”

He was featured int he Globe again in 2015 in an article titled “Where the power players fuel up.” It was basically him talking about eating at expensive French restaurants and being an “art dealer” who purchased “every ounce of the restaurant’s white truffles and every wine from his birth year.”

Basically they are extremely vain, self-obsessed narcissists who want to project to the world how attractive, successful, and amazing they are.

Ana has been missing since New Years Day:

State police are now assisting in the search for a missing Cohasset mother of three last seen on New Years Day. 39-year-old Ana Walshe was last seen at her home in Cohasset shortly after midnight on January 1. Police are turning to the public for help in locating her whereabouts. Cohasset’s Police Chief William Quigley, told Boston 25 News that Walshe was supposed to be going to Logan Airport early New Year’s day around 4:30 a.m. to head to her second residence in Washington DC’s northwest quadrant. Although her husband was sleeping during the time, he told investigators she was supposed to get in a rideshare around 4:30 a.m., he never saw her get into the rideshare. Walshe was scheduled to return to her second home in Washington D.C. to tend to a matter at work, police say.

“It was reported that she was trying to catch a flight during the early morning hours from Logan to D.C.,” Quigley said

According to police, she had a ticket issued and booked for January 3, not January 1. Police say her phone has been off since January 1. Police say there is no indication she ever arrived at Logan but had difficulties getting flight information due to the high volume of delays. Police say Walshe’s husband has been cooperative in the investigation. According to Massachusetts State Police, the Special Emergency Response Team and a local police team are beginning to search the area around the Stop and Shop on Chief Justice Cushing Highway (Route 3A).

“We are actively assisting the local authorities in their ongoing search for our beloved colleague, Ana, and are praying for her safe return,” said Walshe’s employer, the Rubenstein strategic communication firm, in a statement.

Walshe stands 5′2″ and weighs 115 pounds. She has brown hair, brown eyes, and an olive complexion. It is believed that she speaks with an Eastern European accent.

If anyone has seen Walshe or has any information regarding her whereabouts, they are urged to contact the Cohasset Police Department, Detective Harrison Schmidt, at 781-383-1055 x6108 or email [email protected].

So the husband conveniently didn’t see her get in the rideshare and lied to the police when he said she was taking one to the airport for a flight, because the flight tickets were purchased 2 days later. She never went to Logan Airport, nor did she arrive in Washington DC or have any record of being picked up by a rideshare.

For some reason the media isn’t asking any questions about her husband, because if they did they’d find out that he has a long and documented criminal record. In 2017 Brian Walshe sold two fake Andy Warhol paintings for $80K, that he said were worth $240K, to an art dealer in L.A. They sued him over it and he was charged in 2018.

The Superior Court lawsuit from the Revolver Gallery accuses Brian and Ana Walshe of passing off “clever forgeries” of two scarce pieces from Warhol’s series of silkscreened works called “Shadows” by claiming they were worth at least $100,000 and as much as $240,000.

When gallery owner Ron Rivlin received the pieces, however, he says he discovered that promised authentication stamps on their backs were nonexistent, the supporting documentation was phony and the canvas on which the presumably 38-year-old works were printed was new.

“The forgeries appear to be quite recent,” according to the complaint, and probably copies of authentic originals.

“Brian and Ana Walshe likely sold the authentic Warhols to a collector in South Korea and passed off the forgeries in the United States assuming that because the paintings are on different continents, the forgeries would not be detected,” the complaint states.

It’s unclear if Ana was part of planning the scams, but she did participate in selling them.

Last fall, the Walshes listed two “Shadow” paintings on eBay for $100,000, the gallery says in the 10-page complaint. The listing said they had bought the pieces from an art dealer for $240,000 but were “forced to sell them at a loss to remodel their home.”

According to the March 30 lawsuit, Brian Walshe “purports to be variously an international art dealer, an art collector, or an art consultant … from a prominent family in Boston.”

Here’s the best part – they initially agreed to pay back the guy they scammed for $80K, only paid $30K, and then told they weren’t giving anymore because he had the audacity to report it to the police.

Rivlin contacted the police and the Walshes. Brian and Ana Walshe promised to repay his $80,000, the gallery says, but have made only two partial payments totaling $30,000. When they learned he had reported them to law enforcement, “the Walshes notified Revolver that they refused to repay any more of the money in retaliation for the reporting,” the gallery says.

How dare you report an $80K larceny! We don’t owe you anything now! Probably because they cashed the $80K check and went on a spending spree, so they didn’t have the money to pay him back.

On Nov. 7, 2016, the buyer’s assistant flew to Boston and met Walshe to retrieve the paintings, providing him with a cashier’s check for $80,000. According to bank records, the cashier’s check was deposited that day into an account that Walshe controlled, and $33,400 was subsequently withdrawn in the following 14 days.

But they were living it up in Europe on Facebook though!

It gets even worse though. Brian Walshe also scammed his friend in South Korea by telling him that he could sell real Andy Warhol paintings for a good price in New York. He took the paintings with him and then completely ghosted the guy. Unfortunately for him the scam didn’t pay off because he didn’t have proof that it was his and thus couldn’t sell it to a legitimate art dealer.

Walshe initially gained access to the paintings through a friend (the victim). Walshe was present when the victim first purchased a Warhol painting. Sometime after this purchase, the victim purchased the two Shadow paintings. Thereafter, while visiting the victim in South Korea, Walshe told the victim that he could sell some of the art for a good price. The victim agreed and let Walshe take the two Shadow paintings and other fine art pieces.

After Walshe took the items, the victim did not hear from Walshe and was unable to contact him. Eventually, the victim contacted a mutual friend, who met with Walshe and retrieved some of the art. On May 3, 2011, Walshe attempted to consign the Warhol paintings to a gallery in New York City, at which time he also had other art belonging to the victim. The gallery declined to accept the paintings because Walshe did not have a bill of sale.

The US Attorney’s Office ended up prosecuting him and he plead guilty in 2021.

A Lynn man pleaded guilty today in connection with taking and attempting to sell two Warhol paintings on eBay. Brian R. Walshe, 46, pleaded guilty to one count each of wire fraud, interstate transportation for a scheme to defraud, possession of converted goods and unlawful monetary transaction. U.S. Senior District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock scheduled sentencing for Aug. 2, 2021. In May 2018, Walshe was arrested and charged.

But just when you thought he couldn’t get any scummier he went and caught another charge in federal court when he plundered his dead father’s estate after finding out that his old man kept him out of the will. The Dad had the ultimate mic drop in the will:

“My best wishes but nothing else.’”

You know how much of a scumbag you have to be to have your dead father do that to you?

It should be noted that although Ana Walshe obsessively posts on her IG, and on her Facebook, she has not posted a picture of them together in almost 3 years. She mostly posts selfies, pictures of her kids, or images of the fabulous people she works with in DC at her second home.

Then, a few minutes, a fire broke out at their former home, which they moved out of a few months ago.

The Assessor’s Office lists Ana Walshe as property owner.

The police must think something is up because they’re doing a search near their primary home.

I don’t know what is going on here, but there is no way in hell Brian Walshe isn’t hiding something. Just to review, this is a man who is so despised by his own family that they kept him out of the well, so he stole all his Dad’s stuff after he died. He intentionally tried to scam his friend in South Korea, and scammed a LA art gallery with two fake paintings. He’s plead guilty to these crimes but somehow isn’t in jail. He probably owes a lot of people money, and couldn’t afford to pay back $50K. Their entire wealthy existence is all fraudulent and they make people seem like they’re rich and successful by portraying themselves as such on social media. Oh, and now a house they own is on fire.

I can’t imagine this woman is alive, unless this is part of yet another scam. But she is incredibly vain and narcissistic as well, and I find it hard to believe that she didn’t know about her husband’s crimes. She valued her big fancy job in DC as a real estate executive more than she did spending time with her 3 young sons, who she apparently only sees on the weekends.

If she wasn’t in on the scams she was still reaping the fruits of it, and chose to stay with him. All I know is this guy is extremely shady and probably capable of anything. My heart break for her children. We will keep you posted with any updates.

 

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