Temecula Art Gallery Dealer Faces 10 Years in Prison for Stalking Charges

The owner of a Riverside County art gallery pleaded guilty Monday in Los Angeles to federal stalking charges for creating disparaging websites targeting an art publisher and sending threatening messages demanding money to take them down.

Jason White, owner of White Galleries at 41493 Margarita Road in Temecula, entered his plea to two counts of stalking, carrying a potential penalty of 10 years in federal prison.

U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson set June 9 for sentencing.

White, 43, was arrested Feb. 12 after a six-month campaign of electronic and telephonic harassment of art world professionals from whom White sought hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

At one point, White targeted his former employer, an art publisher, as well as his supervisor at the publisher's company, court papers show. The identities of the publisher and supervisor were not disclosed.

After creating derogatory websites in the publisher's name, White sent threatening text messages to the  publisher, the publisher's son and the former supervisor, according to White's plea agreement.

In a text message to his former supervisor, White threatened to find her family and make her pay with "fear, anguish and pain," the document shows.

On several occasions, White obtained pictures of her child and sent pictures of the child to the victim with comments such as "it will be very unfortunate if something was to happen to him," according to court documents.

All the while, White continued to demand payment in exchange for taking down the websites he had created and made it known to the victims that their business reputation would be ruined and that his websites would forever show up any time anyone searched for their name on the Internet, the plea agreeement states.

In January, White went to the Facebook page of a well-known artist represented by the art publisher and posted a picture of himself, along with a statement that he was focusing on the artist's wife and child.

According to the plea agreement, White wrote that he would be waiting in the bushes to "kneecap a child." Through the Facebook message, White told the artist, "your children are my end game."

Court papers show White has felony convictions for possessing controlled substances and unlawfully possessing a weapon, as well as a misdemeanor conviction for fraud.

The case against White was investigated by the FBI's Art Crime Team.

– City News Service.