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A longtime assistant to Jasper Johns pleaded guilty on Wednesday to selling 22 artworks he stole from the artist's Connecticut studio.

The plea deal followed a separate case, earlier this year, in which another former collaborator of Mr. Johns pleaded guilty to selling works unauthorized by the artist. The cases highlight the risks and rewards of forging works by living artists as contemporary art prices soar. (The record price for a work by Mr. Johns, set at Christie's in 2010, is $28.6 million.)

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James Meyer, a former studio assistant to the contemporary artist Jasper Johns, was arrested on Wednesday, August 14, 2013 for stealing 22 unauthorized works, which he then sold through an unnamed art gallery in Manhattan. Meyer, who worked at Johns’ studio in Connecticut from 1985 to 2012, made $3.4 million off of the sales, which totaled $6.5 million.

Meyer was assigned to protecting the works that Johns did not want sold but ended up creating fake inventory numbers and false documents for the paintings, which he photographed inside a binder that catalogued Johns’ authorized works. Meyer told the gallery in New York that he had received the paintings from Johns as a present and offered notarized documents that supported his claim.

Meyer could spend anywhere from 10 to 20 years in prison and has been accused of transporting stolen good across state lines and wire fraud.

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