The Henkel forgery story from 2020 received no happy ending...

The FBI raided the Michigan home of artist Donald "DB" Henkel suspected of having produced numerous plagiarisms in the field of painting and sports memorabilia. Aged 60, Henkel is said to have produced in his house and outbuildings near Traverse City fake works by artists unknown in Europe but popular in the United States, notably the Surrealist Gertrude Abercrombie and stylists of precision, such as Ralston Crawford or George Copeland Ault. He also allegedly counterfeited sports equipment that had been used by baseball legends Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Lou Gehrig. This forger would have started his activity from March 2016 by distributing eight paintings, including five by Ault, two by Crawford and one by Abercrombie, according to the arrest warrant issued by the FBI. Among his victims is the Hirshl & Adler gallery, which had spent $709,000 to acquire two supposedly magnificent works by Ault at auctions organized by Chicago's Leslie Hindman house in 2018 and 2019. Suspected of having accomplices in California, Florida and Virginia, Henkel would also have produced false drawings of Walt Disney, paintings not yet completed as well as baseball bats or balls used by legends of this sport. By selling "Smith, silo" by Crawford, for 395,000 dollars at Hindman in May 2016, and on which he had received 299,000 net dollars, Henkel had claimed that the artist had offered this work to Henry Holtz, dean of the academy of Pennsylvania fine art In March 2019, he sold an Abercrombie painting titled “Coming Home” at Hindman for $93,750, the second best price ever at auction for the artist. As for the fake works by Ault bought by the Hirschl & Adler gallery, respectively " Morning in Brooklyn " and " Stacks Up 1st ave" , these had been sold for 336,000 dollars and 372,500 dollars, very substantial auctions for the artist. . Henkel was caught by the patrol when a buyer tried to find out why Ault's work titled "The Homestead" was not listed in his archives. In August 2017, a restorer examined the $200,000 painting and discovered that some pigments, including a Hansa yellow and acrylic, were fresh and unused in 1938, when it was supposedly produced. Henkel had also sold an alleged baseball bat wielded by Babe Ruth for 60,000 dollars and another allegedly used by Lou Gehrig sold for 120,000 dollars by the auction house Hunt of Pennsylvania.
Seen in Artnews: article from April 2022 : The Feds Indict Two Detroit Brothers.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/illinois-doj-charges-three-men-massive-art-memorabilia-ring-2105691