A Madison gallery owner was accused by the FBI Tuesday of cheating customers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by claiming the prints he sold them were original drawings by the artist Pablo Picasso.

FBI agents arrested David Crespo, 57, at his home in Guilford early Tuesday for mail fraud and wire fraud. Until recently, he operated the Brandon Gallery on the Boston Post Road, a business at which he sold retail merchandise and sports memorabilia in addition to rare art.

Crespo bought a collection of phony Picassos himself and decided to pass the pieces off to three customers and an investor as authentic, according to the arrest warrant in the case.

In addition, he is accused of creating and providing buyers with counterfeit documents that he claimed attested to the authenticity of the art.

Crespo was released on a $50,000 bond Tuesday afternoon after he was presented in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport. Each of the fraud charges carries a maximum, 20-year sentence.

The FBI said that in 2005 Crespo bought what were purported to be 21 original drawings by Picasso through the Internet auction service eBay. The art, for which the FBI said Crespo paid less than $50,000, was described in the transaction as the Arruza Collection. The FBI has not identified the seller, but refers to him in court by the name he used on the Internet, Collectart4less, and by his initials, HP.

Collectart4less provided Crespo with phony letters of authentication, at least one of which was addressed to "Dear EBayer," the FBI said. Collectart4less is described by the FBI as a Miami-based "dealer in art and other collectibles."

In late 2005, Crespo complained to Collectart4less by email that he had learned from the auction house Sotheby's that the Arruza Collection consisted not of originals but of "reproductions on printed paper."

Collectart4less responded that he was not an expert, adding, "about your drawings. You know I cannot certify them," the FBI said.

Knowing that the so-called art probably consisted of inexpensive prints, the FBI says Crespo began selling it, piece by piece.

In 2008, he sold what he said were two Picasso drawings — "La Tauromaquia" and "The Opium Smoker" — to Massachusetts buyers for $33,750. The same two buyers bought another phony piece called "Spirit of the Bullfight" a year later for $10,750.

In so-called letters of authentication, Crespo claimed that Picasso had hand-signed the pieces. He also provided appraisals on which he forged the name of the Miami collector who sold him the art. Crespo used the real name of Collectart4less, gave him a fictitious doctorate and described him as a "noted art expert, researcher, and appraiser" who divided his time between Miami Beach and Mexico City.

The FBI said it interviewed the Miami dealer and he claims no art expertise.

The FBI said a third unidentified buyer bought a drawing called "The Studio at La Californie" from Crespo for $35,000 in cash plus a $48,000 piece of his own art, which he offered in trade. A fourth buyer invested as much as $100,000 in Crespo's gallery in return for a one-third interest in the Arruza Collection, the FBI said.

The FBI raided Crespo's gallery in November 2010, removing computers and carrying away paintings. The following day, Crespo said he was cooperating with authorities and was a victim of people from whom he bought art.

Earlier in 2010, a federal judge on Long Island ruled against Crespo in an unusual lawsuit that contested the ownership of what was described as a multi-media artwork by Salvador Dali called "Folle Folle Folle Minerva." An art dealer from Mineola on Long Island claimed in the suit that Crespo stole the piece from him. A third dealer involved in the suit used three different names and apparently moved to South Africa in the middle of the litigation.

A lawyer involved in the suit said Tuesday that the judge ruled that Crespo, who filed bankruptcy in 1994, had no claim to the Dali piece.

Two days after the FBI raided his gallery, Crespo admitted during an interview with an agent that the art he sold was not authentic.

Crespo told the FBI that he "knew it [the Arruza Collection] was a fake, I am sorry. I knew it was wrong," according to the arrest warrant affidavit,