#10: Nicholas Di Puma of Walton, N.Y. burned his home and convertible to reap fraudulent homeowners and car insurance benefits. But unfortunately, his story didn’t quite make sense to investigators… Di Puma was at home when the fire began, and claimed it started when pans on the stovetop caught fire as he was cooking steak. After trying to extinguish the blaze with a rag, he threw a pan out the door, which landed in the backseat of his convertible. On his way to throw the second pan outside, he claimed that he tripped and the pan landed on a couch. Delaware County officials were not amused or convinced.
Along with a torched home and car, Di Puma also was left with five years of probation.
#9: In Akron, Ohio, Matthew Mueller made the decision to rent a backhoe and bury his 1997 BMW on his father’s rural property. The car had engine problems, and Mueller could make $20,000 by reporting the car stolen.
But after insurance officials were notified of the “stolen” vehicle, Mueller had second thoughts. As he started to dig the car out with the same backhoe used to bury it, the equipment got stuck in the mud. With the evidence out for all to see, Mueller’s scheme was discovered and landed him in jail for a year.
#8: Justo Padron, owner of Tamiami Medical Supply, Inc., was running a fraudulent business that scammed $7.4 million from Medicare. When police caught Padron burglarizing a vehicle, they chased him until he jumped into a lake bearing the sign “Danger Live Alligators.” Padron was found dead the following day with gator bites covering his torso.
#7: Carla Patterson of Newport News, Va. claimed she found a dead mouse in a bowl of vegetable soup at an unsuspecting Cracker Barrel restaurant.
After Patterson requested $500,000 in business liability insurance money, Cracker Barrel stepped up and discovered the mouse did not have soup in its lungs and had not been cooked in the soup. Although Patterson ended up in prison for a year, the restaurant’s businesses suffered, with one employee losing her home after business slowed.
#6: Tramesha Lashon Fox was a Houston high school chemistry teacher who was sick and tired of her monthly car payments. Instead of dealing with the responsibility, Fox gave two failing students passing grades to steal and torch her Chevy Malibu so she could receive car insurance money.
But instead of doing away with her car payments, the school did away with Fox’s job. She also landed in jail for 90 days.
#5: Robert and Teresa Hammond, and Margaret Dillavou and Paul Gaines, two couples from Union County, Ill., crashed the Hammonds’ car into a tree and videotaped the entire event. They needed money to pay Dillavou for rent, and decided to use scammed car insurance money.
However, Dillavou lost the tape. It was later found by her estranged husband during their divorce, who then gave it to the police.
#4: Candice Lambert was a seemingly sweet and inspirational special-education teacher in Albany, N.Y. who was diagnosed with terminal cancer… or so everyone thought.
The teacher actually faked having the disease, garnering sympathy and even going as far as shaving her head and retiring to New Hampshire to live her “final months” on disability insurance from the school system.
Until former colleagues caught wind of a Nashua, N.H. newspaper article about Lambert’s brave fight against an inoperable kidney tumor. It turns out Lambert wasn’t on her deathbed at all; instead she collected disability insurance benefits while taking her act to another unsuspecting school.
Lambert received one to three years in prison for trying to steal more than $110,000 in health insurance and disability insurance benefits.
