NEW YORK — A collector convicted of making bogus vintage wine in his California kitchen and selling it for millions of dollars was sentenced on Thursday to a decade in prison by a judge who said he wanted to send a message to others who might tamper with what people eat and drink.
“The public at large needs to know our food and drinks are safe ... and not some potentially unsafe homemade witch's brew,” U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman said as he announced the prison term for Rudy Kurniawan. He ordered him to forfeit $20 million and pay $28.4 million in restitution.
Kurniawan, a 37-year-old Indonesian citizen of Chinese descent, turned his Arcadia home into a laboratory where he poured wine into what appeared to be vintage bottles, attached elegant fake labels and sold them for tens of millions of dollars.
“He did it to line his own pockets,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Stanley Okula told Berman, who concluded that Kurniawan had caused losses close to $30 million, primarily to seven victims. One of them was William Koch, a billionaire yachtsman, entrepreneur and wine investor.
His lawyer, Jerome H. Mooney, asked for leniency.
“Nobody died. Nobody lost their savings. Nobody lost their job,” he said.
