L.A. pawnshop owner accused of trying to sell stolen Andy Warhol art, worth $175,000
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A former Beverly Hills resident and owner of an L.A. pawnshop tried to sell stolen Andy Warhol art and lied about the scheme to federal agents, authorities said.
The man, Glenn Steven Bednarsh, 58, has been charged with knowingly buying a stolen Warhol trial proof depicting Soviet Union leader Vladimir Lenin in February 2021 for $6,000. He then attempted to sell it to a Dallas-based auction house, a Tuesday news release from the U.S. attorney’s office alleges.
The trial proof from the pop artist, No. 44 of only 46 he made, is worth an estimated $175,000.
Bednarsh, who now lives in Farmington, Mich., is charged in a two-count federal grand jury indictment with conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen goods.
Authorities said he asked Brian Alec Light, 58, of Hudson, Ohio, and formerly from downtown Los Angeles, to help him sell the stolen art. Light contacted the auction house in March 2021 and Bednarsh transported the piece to its Beverly Hills office before the auction house shipped it to its headquarters in Dallas, authorities allege. Officials did not name the auction house or the pawnshop.
Nine Andy Warhol silk-screen prints valued at $350,000 were stolen from a business in Los Angeles and replaced with fakes, according to an affidavit.
An employee of the auction house in Dallas reached out to a West Hollywood art gallery for its opinion of the piece, and the gallery immediately recognized the piece as stolen, according to court documents. The gallery, which was not identified by authorities, then notified the auction house and the FBI that the work was stolen, according to the news release.
Light is accused of lying to FBI agents when asked about the art in March 2021, saying he bought the piece at a garage sale in Culver City for $18,000 and providing a fake receipt of the fabricated transaction. As the investigation continued, Bednarsh was questioned by FBI agents in August and September that year, and authorities alleged he lied to investigators by saying that Light asked him to store the artwork and that he did so without any desire to financially benefit from it.
The artwork was stolen by an unknown thief, not Light or Bednarsh, in early 2021 from the victim’s L.A. County home, according to a separate news release from the U.S. attorney’s office in 2024. Days after the theft, the thief brought the artwork to Bednarsh’s pawnshop, where he purchased it.
The Lenin trial proof is just one of several Warhol works that has been the subject of high-profile art theft. Warhol’s 1972 screen print titled “Mao” was stolen from Orange Coast College in March 2024; a multimillion-dollar collection of Warhol originals was stolen from an L.A. home in 2009; and several other Warhol thefts have made headlines over the last couple of decades.
Orange Coast College authorities and the Costa Mesa Police Department are searching for the ‘Mao’ screen print, which was donated to the school in 2020.
Light pleaded guilty to one count of interstate transportation of stolen goods in November 2024. His sentencing is set for May 27, and he faces up to 10 years in federal prison.
Bednarsh is expected to be arraigned in the coming weeks in the U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles.
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