LOS ANGELES : ‘Lord Peter the Cheater’ Sentenced in Art Case

A shop clerk who once posed as a smooth-talking British lord failed Monday to talk himself out of an American prison term on a stolen painting charge.

Charles Crutcher Jr.--whose antics in London earned him the tabloid nickname “Lord Peter the Cheater”--was sentenced in federal court to a year in custody despite his plea that he is a changed man.

Crutcher, 45, admitted in January that he tried last year to sell a 350-year-old work by Flemish master David Teniers the Younger that had been stolen in 1987 from a London gallery. His admission came as part of a plea bargain agreement with federal prosecutors after two Los Angeles juries were unable to reach a verdict.

Crutcher asked for mercy Monday from U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer in Los Angeles, saying he is a remorseful man who has decided to change his life’s direction. But federal prosecutor Stephen McConnell said Crutcher--who now calls himself Charles de Crevecoeur--deserved the stiffest sentence allowed under the plea bargain. “He isn’t simply a charming rogue,” McConnell said.

In London, Crutcher posed as Lord Peter Charles de Vere Beauclerk, an international financier and polo-playing chum of Prince Charles. He jilted a string of English women and twice escaped police--once by knocking an officer out and later by driving his car through a hedgerow outside a country pub.