Kenneth Walton was a lawyer until he became an eBay art trader in December 1998. Over time his online sales tactics grew increasingly fraudulent, culminating in the $135,858 sale of a forged Richard Diebenkorn painting in May 2000. The story of this infamous auction, first broken by an investigative report published in the New York Times, ultimately resulted in his prosecution by the federal government for placing shill bids. He was sentenced in June 2004 and now lives in Sacramento, California.
