The United States Attorney’s Office has announced that an internationally known art dealer was sentenced on Jan. 13 to two years in federal prison for embezzling from the bankruptcy estate of Ace Gallery Los Angeles, an art gallery located in Beverly Hills and the Miracle Mile, while acting as the estate’s trustee and custodian.

Douglas J. Chrismas, 80, of the Mid-Wilshire area, was sentenced by United States District Judge Mark C. Scarsi, who also ordered him to pay $12.8 million in restitution. Last May, a jury found Chrismas guilty of three counts of embezzlement against a bankruptcy estate.

“Instead of performing his fiduciary duty and properly managing the gallery’s bankruptcy estate, this defendant chose to use funds that belonged to the creditors of the gallery to make them whole, but for his dream of an art museum that never came to be,” United States Attorney Martin Estrada said. “[This] sentence provides a just punishment for these crimes, which were brazenly undertaken by a thief who gamed a system designed to protect those in financial desperation.”

Chrismas was the president and CEO of Art and Architecture Books of the 21st Century, which did business as Ace Gallery and had offices in the Miracle Mile and Beverly Hills. In February 2013, Ace Gallery filed a Chapter 11 petition in federal bankruptcy court in Los Angeles and continued to operate while in bankruptcy, with Chrismas acting as fiduciary and trustee. In late March and early April 2016, Chrismas embezzled approximately $264,595 that belonged to the Ace Gallery bankruptcy estate, authorities said. It included a $50,000 check that Chrismas signed and was drawn against the estate and paid to Ace Museum, a separate nonprofit corporation that Chrismas owned and controlled.

Chrismas also embezzled $100,000 owed to Ace Gallery by a third party for the purchase of artwork, prosecutors said. Instead, the funds were paid – at his direction – to the Ace Museum. Authorities said Chrismas embezzled approximately $114,595 owed to the gallery by a third party that purchased artwork, but which Chrismas instead had paid to Ace Museum’s landlord. Chrismas funneled money from the bankrupt Ace Gallery for more than three years until April 2016 when the bankruptcy court appointed an independent trustee to run Ace Gallery’s bankruptcy estate and Chrismas was removed.

The FBI’s Art Crime Team investigated the case, which was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Valerie L. Makarewicz, of the Major Frauds Section.