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<h3><em><strong><span style="color:#808080;">&#8216;Philanthropist sues for being duped into spending $18M on fake Indian antique jewels&#8217;</span></strong></em></h3>
<h6><span style="color:#2e0303;"><strong>Rubin Museum of Art co-chair claims woman conned her into paying $18M for knockoffs of ancient Indian jewelry </strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color:#2e0303;"><strong>Shelly Rubin, 73, accused Nisha Sabharwal, 56, of </strong></span><span style="color:#2e0303;"><strong>conning her into paying $18M for knockoffs of ancient Indian jewelry </strong></span></h6>
<h6 class="ra-caption"><span style="color:#2e0303;"><strong>Shelly Rubin, </strong></span><span style="color:#2e0303;"><strong>co-chair of the </strong></span><span style="color:#2e0303;"><strong>Rubin Museum of Art </strong></span><span style="color:#2e0303;"><strong>and her husband started the Shelley &; Donald Rubin Foundation in 1995, which awards grants to arts and social justice programs </strong></span></h6>
<h6 class="ra-caption"><span style="color:#2e0303;"><strong>Nisha claimed a friendship with a cash-strapped Indian princess which gave her access to rare antiquities </strong></span></h6>
<h6 class="ra-caption"><span style="color:#2e0303;"><strong>When Rubin had the pieces appraised, the stones and makeup of the jewelry samples &#8220;were not as represented&#8221; antiques, they were made in the 1990s.<br />
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<h6 class="ra-caption"><span style="color:#2e0303;"><strong>In addition, &#8220;their value was a mere fraction of the prices, in some instances only 2 % , charged by Nisha&#8221;<br />
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<h6 class="ra-caption"><span style="color:#2e0303;"><strong>A Diamond necklace from the &#8216;cash-strapped&#8217; Indian princess Nisha, claimed was worth more than $1 million , then sold to Rubin for the &#8220;bargain&#8221; price of $470,000, had diamond shards, was worth only $14,155</strong></span></h6>
<h6 class="ra-caption"><span style="color:#2e0303;"><strong> The civil suit cites Nisha&#8217;s husband, Mohit Sabharwal, as an accomplice in the alleged con</strong></span></h6>
<h6 id="ra-headline"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-143201" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/shelley-and-donald-rubin.jpg" alt="Shelley and Donald Rubin.jpg" width="1200" height="800" />NY philanthropists, Shelly <strong>Rubin and her husband started the Shelley &; Donald Rubin Foundation in 21 years, which awards grants to arts and social justice programs</strong></h6>
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<article id="ra-body">Nisha Sabharwal claimed her friendship with a cash-strapped Indian princess gave her access to rare antiquities, but this week a prominent Manhattan philanthropist sued 56-year-old Nisha for duping her into buying some $18 million in knockoff jewelry. The lawsuit was filed at the Manhattan Supreme Court, Thursday.<br />
Shelley Rubin and her husband started the Shelley &; Donald Rubin Foundation in 1995, which awards grants to arts and social justice programs. She is also co-chair of the Rubin Museum of Art, which focuses on Himalayan works.<br />
In her civil suit the 73-year-old co-chair of the Rubin Museum of Art who is a major art collector says Nisha Sabharwal befriended her at an Asia Society event in summer 2009.<br />
The defendant, after confirming Rubin&#8217;s identity, quickly steered their conversation to jewelry she was looking to sell &#8211; she insinuated that she was<br />
from &#8220;India&#8217;s upper class and maintaining friendships with and other connections to the social and political elite in India,&#8221; according to the lawsuit .<br />
Sabharwal kept pushing Rubin to build a museum-quality collection, and, &#8220;in furtherance of her scheme, Nisha explained that one of her friends, who she claimed to be a princess descended from a historically prominent family in India, wanted to convert some of her family&#8217;s considerable jewelry holdings into cash.<br />
She told the bedazzled Rubin that certain older Indian families had significant amounts of valuable jewelry and historical pieces, but not significant liquid assets.&#8221;<br />
The philanthropist went on a buying spree over the next five years.<br />
The purchases were all personal and not for her museum.</p>
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<h6 class="ra-caption"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-143198" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/shelley-rubin1.jpg" alt="Shelley Rubin1.jpg" width="1200" height="1804" /><strong>Shelley Rubin claimed her Indian connection duped her of $20 million in fake jewelry</strong></h6>
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<p>The lawsuit claims that &#8220;In total, over the course of the relevant period, Sabharwal fraudulently induced Rubin to make purchases in excess of $18,136,150.00 as evidenced by approximately 80 invoices. Each sale included multiple pieces of jewelry,&#8221; the suit says.<br />
The first time Rubin thought to have her valuable Indian collection appraised was late 2014. She could buy a piece of real estate and plan her estate.<br />
After Rubin told her Indian antique jewelry contact she was pursuing appraisal, the self-styled jewelry dealer &#8220;became uncomfortable&#8221; and tried to discourage her from doing so.<br />
Rubin says Sabharwal went on to pepper her with questions about the state of the appraisal, prompting art collector &#8220;for the first time, to suspect that Nisha may not have been entirely forthright in her representations concerning the jewelry,&#8221; the suit says.<br />
In June 2016, Netherlands-based Van Gelder Indian Jewelry BV, described in the suit as &#8220;a company with an impeccable world-wide reputation,&#8221; took a look at some of Rubin&#8217;s pieces. The shocking outcome was that: &#8220;Rubin was advised that they were modern pieces made to look old, of the sort that were found in bazaars tourists frequented,&#8221; the suit claims.</p>
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<h6 class="ra-caption"><img class="alignnone wp-image-143199" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/rubin-museum-of-art-ny1.jpg" alt=" Rubin Museum of Art NY1.jpg" width="675" height="423" />The Rubins own and operate the Rubin Museum of Art which focuses on Himalayan works</h6>
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<p>Stunned, Rubin next sent the firm three more pieces for additional testing. The result again was anything but as expected. Analyses revealed the stones and makeup of the jewelry samples &#8220;were not as represented&#8221; and that they were made in the 1990s.<br />
In addition, &#8220;their value was a mere fraction of the prices, in some instances only 2 %, charged by Nisha.&#8221;<br />
It turned out a necklace that Nisha claimed came from her mother&#8217;s collection, that she described as an &#8220;emerald and diamond necklace in gold&#8221; and sold to Rubin for $230,000, &#8220;was, in actuality, a recent creation with no emeralds, but garnets and hand cut glass along with other-non-precious stones, with an appraised value of $5,750. A mere 2.5% of their fraudulently inflated selling price and alleged value.&#8221;<br />
A diamond necklace that Nisha claimed was worth more than $1 million, but sold to Rubin for the &#8220;bargain&#8221; price of $470,000, only had diamond shards and was worth a mere $14,155.<br />
The civil suit cites Nisha&#8217;s husband, Mohit Sabharwal, as being involved in the alleged con.</p>
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Expensive ripoffs! Rubin Museum of Art co-chair claims woman conned her into paying $18M for knockoffs of ancient Indian jewelry
