Greed was not good for the man who was one of the models for fictional Wall Street raider Gordon Gekko.
Former financier Asher B. Edelman says he was duped by an avaricious art dealer who owes him $131,000 in an art deal gone bad.
Edelman says he agreed to set up a $206,000 loan from his mother’s estate to help Dutch art dealer Remko Spoelstra sell Edvard Munch’s “Bathing Boys.”
Spoelstra represented that he had a deal with the painting’s owner to bring it to New York to show to potential buyers, Edelman says in a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.
Edelman says that in November he forwarded to Spoelstra $131,000 as a first payment on the loan.
But Spoelstra had no deal with the painting’s owner, Edelman says. In December, the artwork was sold for $7 million to the Swiss Business Council of Abu Dhabi, the papers say. Edelman wants his $131,000 back, with interest. Spoelstra declined to comment.