Richard Incandela
A two-time felon who Heritage Christian Schools officials say defrauded the school has been arrested in Florida on insurance fraud charges involving about $500,000.
Just before his arrest Monday, Richard Incandela, 57, attempted to solicit $528,000 from an undercover insurance investigator “to purchase life insurance policies not in existence,” according to an arrest affidavit filed in Hillsborough County, Fla. He was arrested on felony charges of scheming to defraud more than $50,000 and selling insurance without a license.
Then, on Monday, an insurance fraud investigator posing as the couple’s nephew met with Incandela in a St. Petersburg office. During that session, Incandela solicited money that he claimed would be used to purchase four insurance policies from two other people in deals known as life settlement transactions, Hirst said. In life settlements, people sell their life insurance policies to third parties who would then be entitled to any death payments.
Incandela was released from county jail on a $17,000 bond early Tuesday. It will be up to the Hillsborough County state’s attorney’s office whether Incandela should be formally charged with the crimes alleged in the arrest affidavit.
Incandela has two prior convictions, one for a $1.1 million fraud in Illinois and a second for grand larceny in Florida. Both convictions occurred in the early 1990s.
Source: Cary Spivak and Amy Hetzner of the Journal Sentinel
