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The date was January 17, 1994, and the place was Van Nuys, California. Suddenly the earth began to shake and rumble. Some people ran for cover while others closed their eyes and just waited until the ground movement stopped. Property claims that resulted from that one minute of geological rocking and rolling would be forever after categorized as Northridge Quake claims. Companies quickly formed disaster teams and went to work. Real destruction was massive.
It was an opportunity not to be missed, theorized a federal grand jury in an indictment recently brought against two men. Irwin Bransky and Nelson Landman were accused of filing a false insurance claim after the quake and of trying to collect nearly $5 million from their insurer.
Kenfil Distribution, Inc., the second largest software distribution company in the US at the time, had three warehouses in some of the areas hit hardest by the quake. The indictment alleges that a few items may indeed have fallen off the shelves at one of the Van Nuys facilities, but no real significant damage resulted. Within hours, however, Landman is accused of ordering employees to begin mashing, smashing, mangling, crushing and destroying stock. Business was purported to have been slow during recent months and there was a considerable overstock of products. What better way to kill a few birds with a single stone than to “sell” $5 million in merchandise to the insurance company?
The eight count federal indictment could potentially result in $2 million in fines and 40 years in prison for Bransky and Landman. They could also be ordered to repay RLI Insurance Company the $840,000 it expended on the claim.
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