The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Thursday upheld a nearly $7 million ruling against a New York real estate developer who ordered the destruction of a popular art exhibition space to make way for a luxury apartment building.

A three-judge panel of the Manhattan-based appeals court ruled that Gerald Wolkoff had “willfully” violated the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, when he sent a team of workers in 2013 to “whitewash” dozens of graffiti artworks at the 5Pointz complex in Long Island City, Queens, which had garnered worldwide renown for its striking visual displays.