A 62-year-old Jacksonville businessman, reported dead two years ago, is not only very much alive, he’s behind bars in a North Carolina jail.
Jose Lantigua was pulled over in Buncombe County, N.C., on Saturday and now faces federal insurance fraud charges, according to The Florida Times-Union. It seems the former owner of financially strapped Circle K Furniture was reported dead two years ago while he was visiting Venezuela, the paper reported.
http://liarcatchers.com/insurance_fraud.html
Lantigua’s wife, Daphne Simpson, 57, of Ponte Vedra Beach, was also arrested, but later released by federal agents. She was arrested again Saturday night when she returned to St. Johns County and it was clear to authorities there that she did, in fact, know her husband was alive.
The case against Lantigua began to unfold when the U.S. embassy in Caracas issued paperwork in 2013 meant to record an American’s death overseas. While some of Lantigua’s insurance companies began paying claims, others thought something smelled fishy and started looking into the possibility that the death had been faked, the paper reported.
Legal wrangling ensued over the next two years with two insurance companies – Hartford Life and Annuity Life Insurance Co. – claiming that a worker had been bribed to forge documents saying Lantigua had been cremated, WTOP reported. At one point, Lantigua’s son accused an insurance company of altering documents to make it appear as if the Venezuelan government voided the death certificate. While a judge ruled the papers were faked, he could never determine just who was responsible for the act, the station noted.
All speculation came to a crashing halt on Saturday when that traffic stop ended in Lantigua’s arrest. He now faces fraud charges in regard to those insurance policies that add up to about $9 million combined issued by a total of seven different companies.
Who will represent the family in the impending “post-death” legal fight remains unclear. It seems the lawyer that stood by the family during a number of civil suits has withdrawn from the case.
“I and the law firm were shocked to learn this morning that we have been defrauded by acting and relying on the information … that indicated he was dead,” the Times-Union quoted Joshua Woolsey of the Rogers Towers firm as saying.
Lantigua remained on a federal hold in the Buncombe County Jail as of Monday. No booking photo was available.
Lantigua’s wife was released from the St. John’s County Jail on $200,000 bond Monday, jail records indicate.
