Ex-New Orleans cop charged with allegedly orchestrating failed art insurance scam

Some art fraud cases are so skillfully executed that it can take years, if not decades, for them to finally begin to unravel. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the case of Nevada lawyer turned New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) officer Christian Conrad Claus, whose alleged scheme to defraud an insurance company with a false art theft claim reads like a satire of the art trade from the moment his foreplay supposedly opens.

Claus was charged July 1 with wire fraud, mail fraud and four related counts by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana. If convicted, he faces up to 75 years in prison and a maximum fine of $1.5 million. Ironically, those serious consequences now loom over Claus because, authorities say, he orchestrated a fraud that would have earned him a percentage of a co-conspirator’s $128,500 insurance claim and a modestly improved position with the NOPD.

From routine to stratagem?

The alleged fraud was widely reported in Times-Picayune in New Orleans, grew out of routine police work. Claus was the officer who responded to an Oct. 25, 2019, theft report by Fouad K. Zeton, a former Syrian boxer who at the time owned the Magnolia Mansion, an event venue often used for local political fundraisers in a city where corruption has been rife for decades. Zeton said cash, jewelry and a leather jacket had been stolen from his home in the Lakewood neighborhood of New Orleans.

However, after learning that Zeton was insured, Claus allegedly told him that insurers reimburse policyholders for the valuation of stolen items—intentionally citing art as one example—rather than the purchase price. Claus then voluntarily admitted that he had once received a $5,000 settlement from his insurer after a thief had made off with a sword he had purchased for $50, all thanks to a favorable valuation from the seller. Court documents allege that Claus told Zeton that he could organize a similar scam thanks to his powers as a police officer and his “connections” with an appraiser.

Zeton’s original police report, however, did not list any art on the list of allegedly stolen property. About a week later, however, he called the NOPD again to file a second report with a second officer unrelated to the developing scheme. This time, Zeton said he realized that about ten paintings he owned were missing.

Five days after filing the second theft report, Zeton called NOPD again to ask Claus to come to his home to take a follow-up report on the allegedly stolen paintings. Court records show that Claus’ body camera recorded the entire encounter, during which Claus and Zeton tried to act as if they weren’t intimate for more than a half-hour. As part of that effort, Claus even held up a sign — still visible in the frame, it appears — that read “NOT CONRAD,” reminding Zeton to refrain from using the first name that Claus’ friends and associates usually address him by.

Prosecutors say that between Claus’ two visits to Zeton’s home, the two men exchanged numerous phone calls and text messages about how to carry out the plan. Among the issues discussed was the appraiser: Michael Jon Schofield, a Las Vegas resident whom Claus likely knew from years of practicing law in Nevada. Court documents say Claus wrote Schofield a check for $2,000 to prepare an appraisal for Zeton, estimating that 12 of the latter’s paintings were worth between $2,500 and $15,000 each. Claus reportedly sent that appraisal to Zeton days before the next visit so it could be used to support a false police report about the missing paintings.

Rupture

The plot apparently began to unfold during the insurance claim process. Zeton’s insurance agent asked how he had selected and paid Schofield to appraise his collection. Prosecutors say Zeton said he couldn’t remember. It would probably have been a less suspicious exchange except for the fact that Schofield had previously been convicted of theft; in 2008, he was sentenced to 10 months in a California prison for securing a $40,000 loan using a Picasso drawing titled Couplewhich in reality he did not possess.

While red flags were popping up over the insurance claim, Claus allegedly remained in close contact with Zeton about the rest of his compensation for orchestrating the fraud: helping to advance Claus’s professional standing through Zeton’s supposed influence over a “high-ranking NOPD officer.” Court records include a selection of texts Claus sent over the course of more than a year, asking Zeton for help in getting more favorable shifts and a possible promotion to detective. (It remains an open question whether Zeton ever complied with Claus’ requests, as well as who the “high-ranking police officer” might be.)

The Federal Bureau of Investigation raided two of Zeton’s properties in 2021. They found a collection of paintings that he claimed had been stolen about two years earlier. Zeton was formally charged with one felony count of conspiracy to commit telecommunications fraud in December 2022. The indictment included a reference to an anonymous NOPD officer who “agreed to document an alleged theft in a police report in exchange for a share of the anticipated proceeds.” The NOPD reassigned Claus to a desk job that same month after learning he was under federal investigation; he resigned from the force in July 2023.

The token that he sold Magnolia Mansion in early 2023 for $4.2 million, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit telecommunications fraud in April 2023 and is believed to have cooperated with authorities in their case against Claus. Also expected to testify against the potential mastermind of the operation is Schofield, who pleaded guilty in May to a misdemeanor charge, a legal term for refusing to report a crime of which one has direct knowledge.

In a signed acknowledgment of the case against him, Schofield admits that he considered Zeton’s paintings to be of little value when he saw images of them in November 2019. He later wrote in an email to Claus that the attached appraisal, which valued the 12 works together at $128,500, was “the best (he) could do.”

Schofield could be sentenced to up to three years in prison in August. Zeton, who is scheduled to be sentenced in September, faces a maximum of five years in prison. But he has also fueled speculation that authorities’ interest in the case stems from ongoing investigations into other New Orleans officials, including Mayor LaToya Cantrellto whom Zeton had previously lent Magnolia Mansion and whom he called “friend.” During an investigation into his actions in 2021, he said, “This has nothing to do with art.”