Saudi financier Adnan Khashoggi may have paid too much when he bought 38 paintings from Imelda Marcos for $6.5 million, an art expert testified.
Ian Glenn Kennedy, a senior vice president at Christie's auction house, testified Monday at the fraud trial of Imelda Marcos and Khashoggi that 26 of the paintings had a combined value in 1986 of $1.7 million to $2.7 million.Khashoggi has said he paid Imelda Marcos $6.5 million for the paintings as a favor because she and her late husband, former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, needed money. Twenty-six of the paintings were seized in 1987 in France at the urging of the United States.
The financier said he did not have the paintings appraised and acknowledges paying more than they were worth. He said in an interview last week, "If you saw the paintings you wouldn't buy them for a dollar. You wouldn't hang them on the walls tastewise."
None of the works' painters or titles has been identified in court.
Further testimony about the paintings was expected Tuesday in federal court.
Prosecutors say the Marcoses bought the paintings, as well as four Manhattan buildings, with money embezzled from the Philippine treasury.
Khashoggi is accused of forging documents to help the Marcoses conceal their ownership of the paintings and real estate in violation of a 1986 U.S. court order freezing any transactions involving Marcos-owned properties.