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By Barry Zalma, of course
The Hungarian owned and operated a Board and Care facility for the aged in Carson City, Nevada. He brought his younger brother over from Hungary to help him in the business. It was only a 20-bed facility, and the two could manage the entire business with little help.
The oldest brother was the thinker. He received an honorary PhD from the New World Society of Abundant Consciousness, a school in the desert just North of Las Vegas. After receiving his honorary degree (for a donation of $15,000) he insisted on the title of doctor.
The Doctor had no training in any field. He had a high school diploma and had operated several restaurants before buying the Board and Care facility. He believed his purchased title conferred on him the right to prescribe medicine, to give psychological advice, and to do whatever he pleased. He would get drugs for his patients from other-than-legitimate sources. Then he would bill the patients’ insurers as if the medicines were prescription drugs prescribed by a staff physician.
His younger brother maintained the facility, cooked the meals for the residents, doubled as a nurse and ran the business. The Doctor acted like royalty.
Since the small business required both to work if it was to make a profit, the business began to deteriorate. Cash flow was minimal. Patient services became almost nonexistent. The Doctor skimmed as much money into his pocket as he could and still keep the patients alive. Neither he nor his brother drew anything much than subsistence moneys from the business.
It was the dedicated younger brother who made the business work. In order to keep it solvent, he began to cut personal corners. First he decided to drop a $100,000 life insurance policy. With the reduced earnings of the business, he could not afford to pay the premium.
The Doctor, who used the same insurance agent, was told of the intent of the brother to cancel the policy. The Doctor asked the agent to keep the policy in effect without his brother’s knowledge. The Doctor would pay the premium as a business expense of the board and care facility.
The agent, not wishing to lose his commission, agreed and kept the policy in force, accepting premium payments from the Doctor.
The younger brother suffered from severe hypertension. He controlled the disease by diet and medication. More than anything else, he trusted his older brother. He thought his older brother was wise and knowledgeable. He thought his older brother had the same level of expertise as any physician.
After the Doctor had paid the first monthly premium on the life insurance policy, he explained to his brother that the hypertension drugs prescribed for him were dangerous. He told his younger brother that he had more effective drugs in the inventory of the Board and Care facility. Since they were in the stock of the facility, he could give them to his brother at no cost.
The brother stopped taking his prescribed medicine and started taking the drugs his brother gave him. The Doctor did not tell his brother that the drugs contained digitalis. Digitalis is a drug that is useful in reducing chest pains in people with heart conditions, but is poisonous in the amounts the Doctor told his brother to take. It is even more poisonous to a person with hypertension.
Within two weeks of taking the Digitalis, the younger brother was found by his wife, apparently dead, on his kitchen floor. Paramedics arrived and immediately began CPR. Because she did not know what to do after calling the paramedics, the wife called her brother-in-law. he arrived at the scene about the same time as the paramedics. He was hysterical. He interfered with the paramedics. They had to forcibly remove him from his brother’s side so they could perform CPR. The paramedics put the brother in an ambulance and raced toward the hospital with red lights flashing and siren wailing. The Doctor followed and almost side-swiped the ambulance twice.
The ambulance driver called for police help on his radio. A Carson City police officer pulled the Doctor off to the side of the road and restrained him for sufficient time to allow the ambulance to arrive at the hospital. They could not revive the younger brother. He was pronounced dead one hour later.
The Doctor convinced the wife there should be no autopsy. His brother, her husband, had a severe heart condition that was well-documented. So there should be no reason to cut his body to satisfy a silly local ordinance. The Doctor convinced the brother’s family physician to sign the death certificate showing the cause of death as a heart attack. The family physician did so without evidence of such a heart attack. The family physician had not even seen the deceased within six months of his death. The family physician clearly violated the law. He thought the death certificate would help the family as they appeared adamantly against the invasive procedure of an autopsy.
The widow was not an intelligent woman. She had limited education in her country of birth, Hungary. She could barely read or write the English language and spoke it with a thick accent. She relied totally on her brother-in-law, and he handled the disposition of her husband’s estate. The widow signed whatever papers he put before her.
One of those papers was a claim form for the life insurance policy. The claim form did not use the sister-in-law’s address but, rather, a PO Box held in secret by the Doctor. The insurance company, presented with an appropriate claim form signed by the widow and what appeared to be a proper death certificate, immediately issued its check for $500,000. It was made payable to the widow, the sole beneficiary named in the policy.
The Doctor received the check. He signed the widow’s name to it and deposited the money in his account. He used the money to pay the debts of the Board and Care facility and to buy a new home for himself on five acres of desert property outside of Carson City. The widow was left with nothing but debts. She was forced to sell her home, and after paying a commission to the realtor and funeral expenses, she had only $1,000 left.
Her generous brother-in-law, the Doctor, loaned the widow $10,000 which she used to buy some second-hand furniture and move into a small apartment. She met a blackjack dealer at one of the casinos and married him so she would have some means of support.
The Doctor lived in luxury for a year off the proceeds of the life insurance policy and then began planning his next insurance fraud. He had no other brothers to kill, so he decided to have a fire at his new home.
*** Barry Zalma of the Culver City law firm of Barry Zalma, Inc., is also the president of ClaimSchool, Inc. and the publisher of How Your Friends & Neighbors are Screwing You. He can be reached at (310) 390-4455.
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