Kenneth Andrew’s birthday, November 23rd, 1967, is the day of his birth. He is an American software engineer and the author of the memoir fake: forgery lies & ebay, which describes his time spent selling faked paintings on the online auction site ebay. The book was published in 2011. At the moment, he and his wife make their home in San Francisco, in the state of California. In the years 1999 and 2000, Walton was practicing law in Sacramento, California, while also selling art on eBay. He had more than 40 online identities that he used to artificially inflate the prices of his paintings by driving up the number of bids. he posted an auction on ebay in may 2000 for an oil painting that payed attention to a closing bid of $135,805 and which bidders wonder might be a work by richard diebenkorn because of its similarity to the artist’s work, the presence of the monogram ‘rd52 ‘ on the canvas, and the fact that the seller claimed to have found it at a garage sale in berkeley, where diebenkorn had lived. It appeared as though Walton had no knowledge of art, and he claimed in the description that accompanied the auction that he had no idea how much the painting was worth. Following the publication of investigative reports by judith h. dobrzynski in the new york times, it was revealed that walton was in fact an experienced art seller who had sold numerous forged paintings and collaborated with other sellers who bid on each other’s items. The auction generated international news and headlines. He was kicked out of eBay, and the FBI began looking into the transactions he was involved in there as well. The federal government brought charges of fraud against walton and two other individuals, kenneth fetterman and scott beach, accusing them of placing bids on their own auctions. This case was the first ever trial for so-called ‘shill bidding ‘ on the world wide web and took place in April of 2001. In return for a lighter sentence, Walton agreed to collaborate with the prosecution, acknowledge that he had forged the artwork or copied Richard Diebenkorn’s initials onto the picture that he had put up for sale on eBay, and plead guilty. In 2004, he was ordered to give up his license to practice law, given a term of nine months of probation, and had to pay victims a total of $74,232 in restitution. After being implicated, Walton went on to establish the software business hammertap and create the first ebay market research program called deepanalysis. Both of these achievements came after Walton was involved in the eBay scandal. Following eBay’s discovery of Walton’s relationship with hammertap and subsequent denial of the firm’s request to accept eBay’s direct data feeds, Walton ultimately decided to sell the business in 2004 to a company headquartered in Utah called brilliant builders. Walton was able to ‘rebuild ‘ his image as a result of the fraudulent actions he participated in, despite the fact that things ultimately turned out for the better (somehow). The unexpected turn of events may just serve as motivation for those individuals who tend to exaggerate things. In point of fact, the world of art and painting is a realm filled with wonder, mystery, and passion as well as potential for both greatness and failure. Come and take a glimpse at the world of the amazing and enchanting art and painting that has captured many people into the secrecy of pure happiness and amazement. There are so many secrets that are just waiting to be unearthed and disclosed to you at this very now. During the time that you spend looking for them, you will, not surprisingly, realize that you are becoming more entranced by the aesthetic appeal of works of art and paintings.
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