ST. PETERSBURG, December 20 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov) – The Dzerzhinsky District Court of St. Petersburg has refused to grant a compensation for prominent Russian art expert Yelena Basner who has earlier been acquitted of fraud, RAPSI reported from the courtroom on Tuesday.

On May 17, the court declared Basner not guilty to fraud. Basner was 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.

During the hearings on Tuesday Basner said that she was being held in detention from April 2014 till January 2015 and because of that she couldn’t work. According to Basner, in early 2014 she signed a consulting services contract with Bukowskis Auction House, but couldn’t complete her work because of her stay under house arrest. She was restricted from travel and seeing the paintings she was supposed to examine.

Basner demanded 1.5 million rubles ($24,500) in compensation and also demanded to compensate her 209,000 rubles ($3,400) legal expenses, obligate prosecutors to apologize for unwarranted prosecution and publish an announcement in media regarding her exoneration. The court ruled to grant only one demand related to the compensation of Basner’s legal expenses.

Basner, a former employee of the Bukowskis Auction House as well as the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, was arrested on January 31, 2014. She was charged with large-scale fraud. On February 5, 2014, she was placed under house arrest. In January 2015, a court in St. Petersburg released Basner from the house arrest.

According to investigators, in the summer of 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 million rubles), whereas its real price was 12,000 rubles (€ 166).

Prosecutors have asked the court to sentence Basner to 4 years in prison, impose a fine of 500,000 rubles ($7,700) on her and order to pay the collector 16.5 million rubles ($254,600) in compensation. Basner was found not guilty on May 17. The St. Petersburg City Court upheld her acquittal on August 11.