Man Pleads Guilty in Fraud That Swindled Bruce Springsteen Manager
Thomas Doyle pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to one count of wire fraud in a scheme involving Gustave Courbet’s Mother and Child on a Hammock (circa 1848), a painting that ultimately ended up with Jon Landau, Bruce Springsteen’s longtime manager. Prosecutors said Doyle convinced London dealer Patrick Matthiesen to send him the painting by promising to broker a sale, then falsely claimed in August 2024 that he had sold it for $550,000; instead, he allegedly consigned it through a partner to a Manhattan gallery, which sold it a few months later for $125,000 to Landau. US Attorney Jay Clayton said Doyle kept most of the proceeds while giving Matthiesen false explanations for nonpayment; Doyle will forfeit the sale proceeds and faces up to 20 years in prison, with sentencing scheduled for November. The FBI’s Art Crime Team arrested Doyle in November 2025, and the article notes his prior art-fraud convictions, including a 2007 Degas-related case and a later scheme involving a Corot purchase in which a Japanese investor wired $880,000 and Doyle bought a Ferrari; in 2011, Judge Colleen McMahon called him a “career criminal.”
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This story was covered in AI Unearths Secrets, Museums Face Reckoning