By Associated Press
Allentown, Pa. — A Thai American couple has been sentenced to seven to 14 years in prison for faking the husband’s death in Thailand in a scheme to collect nearly $1.6 million in life insurance. Lee Likhit Kongsiri, 63, and his wife Phatcha, 64, both pleaded guilty in county court to insurance fraud and conspiracy, and seven counts of theft by deception.
Prosecutors said the couple faked Lee Kongsiri’s death in 1995 in Thailand, claiming he died of a heart attack brought on by too much drinking and womanizing. Lee and Phatcha Kongsiri, who were born in Thailand and have U.S. citizenship, were arrested in Bangkok last year at the request of the FBI and returned to the United States to face charges, including nine counts of insurance fraud.
They could have been sentenced to 133 years in prison.
The Kongsiri case “is the largest and most stiff sentence ever meted out for an insurance fraud case in Pennsylvania,” said Julia Hearthway, chief deputy attorney general of the Insurance Fraud Section, who added that the scheme destroyed the couple’s family.
The couple used a fake death certificate to get a Death of American Citizen Abroad document from the U.S. Embassy in Thailand and then attempted to collect $1.8 million in claims from seven insurance companies. Five companies paid Phatcha Kongsiri nearly $1.6 million. Two insurance companies, Allstate and Prudential, suspected fraud and did not pay any claims. They alerted authorities and an investigation was launched.
Officials broke the case with the discovery of a videotape that showed Lee Kongsiri alive in 1996. The tape, discovered by a Prudential investigator, was shot by in-laws of the couple’s oldest son, Dennis, during a trip to Thailand in the fall of 1996. |
