HARRISBURG, PA — This week saw 61-year-old Earl Marshawn Washington, a man of many homes, from Honolulu to Las Vegas, sentenced to 52 months behind bars. His conviction? A wicked web of conspiracy involving wire fraud and mail fraud.
Gerard M. Karam, United States Attorney, explains that Washington cunningly confessed his guilt. The unsuspecting gent worked with various love interests since 2013 to craft and sell fake artistic creations, called woodblocks or woodcuts. These aren’t your regular doodles on wood, but result from a delicate art called xylography.
To understand xylography is to travel back in time when artists etched their dreams onto wooden blocks. Armed with a sharp tool, they engraved designs onto the wood surface. The masterpiece then took shape by inking the raised parts and pressing the block onto paper or fabric. The untouched parts stayed colourless, creating striking contrasts. But hey, don’t take xylography lightly; it took root in Germany dating back to the 14th Century!
But back to Washington, originally indicted in January 2023 beside his then-wife, Zsanett Nagy. As part of a plea deal, the charges were dropped, only to replace them with new accusations of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud. He admitted guilt in July 2023. Nagy followed suit in August 2023, pleading guilty to conspiracy involving wire fraud, mail fraud, and money laundering.
The duo confessed to selling phony woodblocks and prints, which they passed off as authentic relics dating from the 15th to early 20th centuries. Their customer roster included French woodblock collectors and a buyer from Hummelstown, Pennsylvania. In one instance, Washington promised French buyers fifteen “15th.C Reformation/Lutheran wood blocks.” They paid Nagy via PayPal, only later realizing the misleading advertisements’ truth. Nagy served as the financial handler, transferring proceeds into her bank account, and swiftly converting them into cash. The French buyers unloaded nearly $85,000 for the counterfeit pieces.
Further victims included another woodblock enthusiast from York, Pennsylvania, who paid a whopping $118,810 between 2013 and 2016 for fraudulent woodblocks they believed were centuries old. Washington even wove a colourful pseudonym into his charade, calling himself “River Seine”.
Washington also confessed to frequently using bank accounts and PayPal accounts in his romantic partners’ names, using his alias when dealing with clients and relying on his partners for mailing packages to the victims.
The price of Washington’s deceptive game? A hefty restitution of $203,240.90 to his victims and three-year supervised release post-imprisonment.
Nagy received her sentence earlier in January 2024 as time already served, and now awaits possible deportation following her conviction.
The pursuit of justice involved a network of crime-fighting institutions. This included Assistant U.S. Attorney Ravi Romel Sharma, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Art Crime Team from the Philadelphia Division, the DOJ’s Office of International Affairs, the French Ministry of Justice, the French National Gendarmerie, German Federal Criminal Police Office, and the State Criminal Police Office of Saxony.
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