Too Stupid to Succeed

True Crime Stories of Insurance Fraud Number 20
Barry Zalma, Esq., CFE presents videos so you can learn how insurance fraud is perpetrated and what is necessary to deter or defeat insurance fraud. This Video Blog of True Crime Stories of Insurance Fraud with the names and places changed to protect the guilty are all based upon investigations conducted by me and fictionalized to create a learning environment for claims personnel, SIU investigators, insurers, police, and lawyers better understand insurance fraud and weapons that can be used to deter or defeat a fraudulent insurance claim.

The Poet Who Tried Insurance Fraud

The insured was a poet. Before immigrating from Soviet Armenia, he was a member in good standing at the Armenian Poets Union. They paid him for his work five hundred rubles a month.

He lived in the capital city of Yerevan in the shadow of Mount Ararat. Here, like all Soviet citizens, before the fall of the Soviet Union, he supplemented his income by buying and selling in the black market. He specialized in jewelry and diamonds.

By 1977 he had amassed, off the pain and suffering of others, over 300 carats of diamonds and diamond jewelry. Most of the diamonds were old mine cut, popular in Russia in the 1890’s, but now out of date. The wealth he had amassed frightened him. He knew that eventually the Soviet Police would catch him and send him to a Gulag. He was committing the most heinous of Soviet crimes. He was a successful entrepreneur.

He went to the American Consulate and got a visa as a refugee. He had convinced the American Consulate the Soviet Government was censoring his poetry. He wanted freedom to write.

Poetry is not an essential industry. The Soviet Government agreed to his immigration. He came directly to Los Angeles and settled in the Armenian community in the hills of Glendale, California. He brought with him all but twenty carats of the diamonds. He needed to use some of his 300 carats to bribe Soviet Customs Officials.

For many years he and his family lived by selling the diamonds at auctions. He continued to write poetry but there was no market for Armenian poetry in the United States. The few Armenian language newspapers would publish his poems but could not pay him.

Eventually his inventory of fine jewelry began to shrink. He had learned to enjoy living in the luxury the diamond sales had brought him. He didn’t know how to earn money to support himself in America. He did not want to return to Soviet Armenia to be a salaried poet.

The insurer issued a policy that requested an immediately inspection of the premises. The inspector visited the premises, saw immediately that it was not as represented and advised the company to cancel. They did.

The insured went to a new broker. The new insurer did not require an inspection of the premises by anyone other than the broker. It issued a million dollar policy. Two weeks later, before the insurer could change its mind, the poet’s oldest son locked the poet and his mother, the poet’s wife, and the gallery owner in the small four by four bathroom. The son then took home all the inventory of Poetry Jewelers.

The three people locked in the bathroom waited ten minutes to make sure the oldest son had driven away and then pushed the holdup button secreted in the bathroom because it is common for thieves to lock jewelry store owners in the bathroom. The three captives also pounded on the wall to gain the attention of the restaurant owner next door. The police were called and broke the door down to free the poet, his wife and the gallery owner.

The loss exceeded a million dollars.
After five days of trial with testimony from nine in the morning until six every night, the jury went off to deliberate. The jury returned with its verdict in forty-five minutes. The verdict was for the defense. The jury was convinced that the poet had presented a fraudulent claim and that the insurance company had properly rescinded the policy.

The result was unusual. The cost was enormous. The investigation cost, court costs, expert witness fees and attorneys’ fees exceeded $500,000. The insurer defeated the claim for one million dollars in lost jewelry and fifty million dollars in punitive damages.

The word went out. This insurance company fights. Do not insure with them.