A Bucks County jury is expected to begin deliberations Tuesday in the $20 million insurance fraud case against a Buckingham socialite accused of using phony receipts and appraisals to justify inflated claims to fund her family’s lavish lifestyle.
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| Claire Risoldi |
Closing arguments in the four-week trial ended Monday before a packed courtroom in the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office case against Claire Risoldi, 71, who is accused of nine offenses including conspiracy, insurance fraud, theft by deception and dealings in unlawful proceeds. The charges center on a series of insurance claims Risoldi filed, mostly centered around a 2013 fire at her family’s 10-acre estate, Clairemont.
Chester County Senior Judge Thomas Gavin will issue his instruction to the 10-man, two-woman jury before they begin deliberations.
In his near four-hour closing, Risoldi defense attorney Jack McMahon told the jury to look beyond the “smoke and mirrors” of the prosecution, which he maintained lacked evidence and facts.
McMahon resurrected the theme of his opening argument, calling insurer AIG, the company that insured the Risoldis’ home and jewelry, a “huge, infamous corporation” that targeted Claire Risoldi to avoid paying the $10 million claim involving jewelry that went missing after a 2013 fire.
McMahon again tried to portray the Attorney General’s Office as partners with AIG “in their dirty work,” at one point accusing AIG and the AG’s office of committing fraud in their prosecution against Risoldi.
He pointed to defense witness Bryan Neumeister, a forensic video and audio expert, who testified last week that when he enhanced a photo taken by a Buckingham police officer shortly after firefighters responded to the Oct. 22, 2013, fire at Clairemont, it revealed a white square object that appeared on a darker square inside the darkened front door of the home.
While Neumeister did not testify to what the object might be, McMahon on Monday insisted the objects were the canvas bags containing $10 million in jewelry the family maintains went missing the day of the fire. McMahon contends neither AIG nor the Attorney General’s Office made any real attempt to investigate the missing jewelry claims because it didn’t fit their narrative.
“Finding even one piece would be detrimental to them,” he said. “This is why our founding fathers put a jury system in place because of the unchecked power of government.”
McMahon maintained that the prosecution had failed to prove that either the jewelry never existed or that its value was inflated. He noted that AIG declined offers to examine the jewelry and it accepted as accurate appraisals the family submitted, which the prosecution contends are fraudulent.
He also contended that contrary to the story the prosecution wanted to tell, the Risoldi family could legitimately spend the $1.5 million in insurance proceeds AIG initially paid out of the homeowner’s claim on three houses and 10 Ferraris.
The $936,000 the Risoldis received under the Alternative Living Expenses portion of the homeowner policy, which covered expenses such as rent, is what AIG determined the family was entitled to, McMahon said. The policy, he added, also did not state they couldn’t buy a home with the proceeds.
But in her summation, senior Deputy Attorney General Linda Montag refuted McMahon’s arguments, telling the jury the AG’s mounds of documentation and witness testimony will convict Risoldi of the charges against her.
“Claire Risoldi was all about the money. When she saw an insurance company, she saw a paycheck,” Montag said.
She urged the jury to review copies of the homeowner’s and jewelry insurance policies, evaluations under oath statements, copies of receipts, appraisals, and the proof of loss statements.
Montag cited 70 receipts Risoldi submitted with her drapery claim where the name of the company, Summerdale, was misspelled. She also showed a fax from Claire Risoldi to an AIG adjuster involving the claim with the same misspelling of Summerdale.
She added that much of the evidence the defense presented helps the prosecution’s case, such as Risoldi’s son, Carl Risoldi, whose testimony as a defense witness supported that Risoldi paid $4,000 a month rent, not $13,000 as they claimed in insurance paperwork, for five months. Carl Risoldi is scheduled for trial on fraud charges in March.
With the jewelry claims, Montag again pointed out that 21 of the more than 50 appraisals submitted for the jewelry policy had the word “jewelry” misspelled, and the appraisal documents seized by the FBI from the named appraiser appear different. She also pointed out the FBI recovered only one appraisal from the business records with Claire’s name on it.
The enhanced photo from Neumeister is not relevant to the case, Montag said, because the image doesn’t show jewelry. More important, she asked jurors, does it make sense that someone would have $10 million in jewelry in the foyer overnight and not immediately returned to the bank where it was stored.
“Ask yourselves, does that have the ring of truth to it,” Montag said. “Use your common sense.”
Montag also showed the jury a series of what she called “silent witnesses,” including a photograph of a book found on Claire Risoldi’s desk at her Danielle Drive home while executing a search warrant. It was called, “Insult to Injury: Insurance fraud and the Big Business of Bad Faith.”
“It speaks for itself,” she said.
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