#3: Massachusetts-based Ronald and Mary Evano had a strange tradition before going restaurants, bars and grocers: glass-eating.
For eight years, the duo filed more than $200,000 in fraudulent claims using fake ID and Social Security cards. Oftentimes, the insurers and businesses paid out to avoid a lawsuit.
But this was not without a physical price. The Evanos braved medical danger to pull of this scam, which included glass in their intestines and colon, vomiting blood, and having to pass glass fragments.
When the couple’s scheme was discovered, the Evanos begged for mercy, stating that they are members of the gypsy community and needed money for dowries and marriage expenses for their sons. Ronald was arrested and charged in 2006, and Mary, who spent years on the run pretending to be a psychic, was finally captured in early 2010.
#2: Michael Paul Schook was a Suffield, Conn.-based ex-con with a lot of debt and a big mouth. Not only was his house in foreclosure, but his car was repossessed and he owed thousands on credit cards.
Desperate for money, Schook decided to set his house on fire to get $250,000… by leaving a fat-filled pan on the stove as he left the house with his family. The house indeed burned down, but it was no surprise to anyone: turns out Schook had told everyone who would listen about his future plans to burn his own house down. His children even told classmates, who reported it to school officials and notified police.
Schook received seven years in prison for his grease fire debacle.
The scheme they cooked up was drastic—and dumb—in every sense of the word.
#1: Clayton Daniels was in a heap of trouble: After sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and deferring his 10-year sentence, he never reported to his probation officer. Daniels would be heading back to jail if he and his wife Molly didn’t do something drastic.
Clayton and Molly dug up the grave of Charlotte Davis, an elderly woman who had been dead for almost a year, dressed her entirely in Clayton’s clothes, put her body in a car and pushed it off a cliff. They hoped the life insurance company would believe the burned body was Clayton, and pay $110,000 in benefits.
But the insurer wouldn’t pay out until a DNA test confirmed the body was indeed Clayton. And just weeks after the accident, Clayton came back with dyed hair and a moustache and was introduced as Molly’s new boyfriend, Jake Gregg.
But some things didn’t add up in the investigation: Molly was “eerily calm” in post-crash interviews; there were no signs of an accident at crash location; investigators discovered the fire started in the driver’s seat of the car and not the fuel tank; and DNA did not match up.
The complex plan was also discovered in great detail on her computer, including Internet history of how to burn a human body beyond recognition and how to create a fake identity.
The scheme landed Molly with 20 years for insurance fraud, and 10 years for hindering Clayton’s arrest. Clayton is awaiting trail on arson charges. Clayton will serve no less than 10 years for desecration of a cemetery and 15 years for arson.
“These people get caught for various reasons, maybe they get greedy and then sloppy, or they just didn’t plan very well to begin with,” says Quiggle. “But some schemes are very well constructed and insurance companies need to do very detailed investigations to uncover a well-concealed crime.”
So how do you protect yourself from being a victim of an insurance fraudster?
Quiggle underscores the need for insurance consumers to be on the alert.
“Is the price too low and the coverage too generous? Did you sign up too easily? Is the seller too pushy and demanding that you buy now without giving you a chance to review or even see the policy? A legitimate insurance provider will give you access to the policy and give you all the time you need to review it. They will also be willing to answer questions,” Quiggle says.
He adds, “But some people are so financially distressed, they’re willing to jump into anything for coverage and they think this is too good to pass up, maybe they were told it’s a limited-time offer. But one simple call to the insurance department to find out if this is a reputable business is all it really takes.”
But insurance companies and investigators are not just sitting back and letting people steal money. According to Quiggle and the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, these crimes are becoming harder to get away with because investigators have better tools to catch fraud suspects. Investigators are even going as far as monitoring social networking sites like Facebook to catch crooks in their lies.
Unfortunately, the courts are not always consistent when it comes to the punishment of insurance swindlers. Sometimes, people are allowed to plead guilty in exchange for no jail time. Other times, when the claimant seems to be an upstanding citizen who did something drastic in a moment of weakness, the punishment will not be as severe.
“The courts have tried to balance the need for justice against the fact that someone did wrong,” says Quiggle. “The more violent the crime, the more risk to public safety, and the more money stolen, the more likely the person will receive a harsher sentence.”
