MOSCOW, May 11 (RAPSI) – The prosecutor in the criminal case against prominent Russian art expert Yelena Basner, who is charged with fraud, asked the court to sentence the defendant to 4 years in prison, Alexander Kasatkin, the lawyer for Andrei Vasilyev, the aggrieved party, told RAPSI on Wednesday.

Besides, the prosecutor asked the court to impose on Basner a fine in amount of 500,000 rubles ($7,575) and rule in favor of the aggrieved party in the framework of a 16.5 million rubles ($253,800) civil lawsuit.

Basner, 58, is being investigated over a painting, “In restaurant”, attributed to Boris Grigoryev, a well-known Russian artist of the first half of the 20th century. The painting, which was allegedly examined by Basner in 2009 and sold for $250,000, was proven to be a fake in 2011.

Basner, a former employee of the Bukowskis auction house as well as the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, was detained by the Investigative Committee on January 31, 2014. She was charged with large-scale fraud. On February 5, 2014, she was placed under house arrest.

According to investigators, in summer 2009 Mikhail Aranson, who is now wanted by police, in collaboration with unknown co-conspirators invited Basner to the criminal conspiracy of selling the fake painting. Investigators allege that Basner made up a sham story about the painting’s history and found the buyer, a publisher Leonid Shumakov. He, convinced of the painting’s authenticity, proposed his close friend, St. Petersburg art collector Andrei Vasilyev, to buy the painting. Eventually, Vasilyev bought the fake painting for € 180,000 (13.5 million rubles), whereas its real price was 12,000 rubles (€ 160).