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| Russell Buckingham |
Russell Buckingham testified he regretted it almost as soon as he wrote the six receipts in 2014 claiming the Risoldis paid him $800,000 cash for a series of murals he painted three years earlier.
“If I could relive this moment again I would do so,” Buckingham said.
But the amount of Buckingham’s commission was the subject of intense questioning during the fifth day of testimony in the $20 million insurance fraud trial of Claire Risoldi at the Bucks County Justice Center. Risoldi is accused of a litany of offenses related to alleged falsely inflated insurance claims filed following fires at her home in 2009, 2010 and 2013. Her son Carl Risoldi, 46, of Buckingham, is scheduled for trial in March on fraud charges stemming from the 2013 fire.
Defense attorney Jack McMahon claimed Buckingham was paid cash, and he was paid more than the $50,000 commission he claimed for the elaborate murals on a domed atrium ceiling featuring portraits of Risoldi family members and dining room walls at Clairemont, as their estate was known.
McMahon contended that Buckingham used the cash to go to Turkey in 2012 and start a theme restaurant that failed. He accused the Risoldis after learning the Pennsylvania attorney general was investigating the family for insurance fraud and worried authorities would learn he didn’t pay correct taxes on the cash he was paid, McMahon said.
“You were worried,” he said to Buckingham. “You pocketed a bunch of cash and didn’t pay anyone. You got scared and you got out in front of it.”
But on the witness stand, Buckingham, who has immunity in the case, said that roughly two months before a state grand jury indicted Risoldi for alleged insurance fraud, Claire and Carl Risoldi asked him to fabricate receipts for the work and inflate the amount he was paid.
The two Risoldis provided him different pens and pencils and pieces of paper to write out the receipts in the kitchen of Clairemont, Buckingham testified. He added that Claire Risoldi told him that she had claimed to insurer AIG that she paid him $800,000 for the murals.
“I wanted to help her. I had considered Claire (Risoldi) a friend, the whole family friends.” Buckingham said. “Frankly, I was flattered anyone thought my work was worth that much.”
Buckingham repeatedly denied that he was paid any cash for the murals. Prosecutors showed the jury of 11 men and one woman a series of checks from the Risoldis in 2011 each made out to Buckingham for $5,000 and one for $10,000, which represented his price of $35,000 for the ceiling mural and $15,000 for nine wall murals.
After he finished the Risoldi murals, Buckingham said he moved to Turkey for two years after he was invited to paint murals in Istanbul. While overseas he lived with his patron’s family. He was not paid for the murals, but he testified it was not unusual for him to donate his work. While in Turkey he also entered into what was ultimately a failed business venture, but another person put up the money, he testified.
Prosecutor Linda Montag asked if he was paid $800,000 for the murals in 2011.
“No,” Buckingham replied. “That was a life-changing amount of money. My life would have been completely different.”
Also testifying Tuesday was Lower Makefield resident Karl Morris, a longtime family friend of Carl Risoldi who acknowledged that he is the owner of record for two homes in the 4000 block of Danielle Drive in Buckingham, even though Claire Risoldi bought them.
The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office contends Morris acted as a straw buyer for the properties to conceal the misuse of insurance money earmarked for living expenses such as rent.
Morris, who has immunity from prosecution, testified he has never received any rent from Claire Risoldi, who has lived in one of the Danielle Drive homes since 2014, despite a lease agreement submitted to AIG that claims she would pay him $13,000 a month.
The Danielle Drive properties and a third Danielle Drive home bought by a holding company allegedly tied to Carl Risoldi are among the direct and indirect Risoldi assets currently frozen under a court order.
Morris testified that while he knew the $13,000-a-month rent was the amount the insurance company had allotted under the 2013 fire claim for family living expenses, he knew he wasn’t going to be paid that amount up front.
When Montag asked Morris if he knew the rental agreement with Risoldi would be in support of an insurance claim related to the last fire in 2013 that significantly damaged Clairemont, he replied that he had “no idea.”
“I really didn’t ask,” Morris said. “I’ve known Claire 25 years. I trust her.”
But McMahon contended that among the payment options the family and Morris had discussed was selling the home after the lease expired in November 2016 and then using those proceeds to reimburse Morris for the back rent; the Risoldis would keep any other profit.
In his first interview with the attorney general’s office in December, Morris told investigators that the Risoldis were going to deduct the monthly rent and settle with him “at the end.”
On Tuesday, Morris testified he wasn’t clear on the details of that future arrangement but that he expected he would be paid “eventually.”
“I trusted something would get done at the end,” he said. “It wasn’t a big deal to me that I was counting nickels.”
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