BUCKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA FAMILY IS ACCUSED OF FUNDING
'EXTRAVAGANT LIFESTYLE' THROUGH $20M IN BOGUS FIRE INSURANCE CLAIMS. THEY ARE OF COURSE INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN
GUILTY BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT IN A COURT OF LAW.
The information below is as was reported by the DA’s office. These people are presumed innocent until proven
guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law before a jury of their peers.
A Pennsylvania family set
fires in their matriarch's home so they could collect more than $20 million in
insurance claims, then used the cash float an "excessively extravagant
lifestyle" marked by $1.2 million in jewelry and six Ferraris, according to
charges announced Thursday by Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane.
Claire Risoldi, four
members of her Bucks County family and two alleged co-conspirators were hit
with several fraud charges on Thursday after a more than year long statewide
investigation.
Fire spread through the
Risoldis' New Hope home, named "Clairemont" by the woman, three times
between June 2009 and October 2013. According to prosecutors, each fire started
near a stockpile of highly flammable materials, including hairspray, and the
cause was ruled undetermined.
In one case, home surveillance
video captured Risoldi leaving the house a minute before smoke appeared and may
have been inside when the home was burning, prosecutors said.
The family then would
collect insurance money for lost jewelry, art and home treatments.
The attorney general said
the family inflated the price tenfold of Romanesque paintings that were
destroyed by fire, depicting the Risoldis wearing "flowing robes gazing
down from the heavens." They also attempted to file a $2 million claim for
damaged window treatments.
Risoldi accused
firefighters of stealing more than $10 million in jewelry from
"Clairemont" while fighting one of the blazes, Kane said.
"I knew my guys
didn't take anything out of the house, but we were accused," said
Midway Volunteer Fire Company Chief Hugh Hager.
After collecting the
insurance money, the family allegedly used the cash to carry out real estate
transactions, buy expensive cars and fund their lavish lifestyle, prosecutors
said. More than $7 million in assets seized by the state included $3 million
from bank accounts, $1.2 million in jewelry, six Ferraris, two Rolls Royces and
a Shelby Cobra.
The grand jury
investigation found Risoldi increased coverage for her jewelry from $100,000 to
nearly $11 million less than a month before the last fire in October 2013. Kane
said jurors also found a pattern of questionable insurance claims by Risoldi
spanning some 30 years. In one example, investigators found jewelry the woman
said she lost in 1993.
In addition to Claire
Risoldi, prosecutors charged her husband, 64-year-old Thomas French; her
43-year-old son, Carl Risoldi; 43-year-old daughter-in-law, Shiela Risoldi; and
48-year-old daughter Carla Risoldi.
Two other men, private
investigator Mark Goldman and fabric vendor Richard Holston, were also charged
in the scheme.
All seven suspects turned
themselves in to prosecutors on Thursday morning and are out on bail.
"It was like a
weight lifted off our shoulders," said Hager.
Well, the jury will decide this case, not the DA or the
media. They have accused a lot of people
of arson without being the case. They
better be right.