U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones said Koch knew the bottles were counterfeit and that he bought the wine not because of the alleged fraud but out of a “desire to gather evidence against Christie’s.” An appeals court last year refused to reinstate Koch’s claims.
Kochs previous claims have included that he was sold counterfeit wine, marked “Th.J.,” that had purportedly belonged to Thomas Jefferson.
The case is Koch v. Greenberg, 07-cv-9600, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).