Florida Businessman Falsely Reported Dead, Returns As Prisoner
Feb. 04--Jose Lantigua, the Jacksonville businessman falsely reported dead in Venezuela, has returned to Florida as a federal prisoner.
Lantigua, 62, is being held without bond in the Baker County Jail, although he hasn't been formally charged with a crime in Florida.
State prosecutors have arrest warrants charging the former owner of Circle K Furniture with fraud.
But they can't use those warrants until Lantigua completes a sentence for passport fraud and identity theft that involved him living under another name in North Carolina while his family fought state and federal court fights over $9 million worth of life-insurance claims about his supposed death.
He pleaded guilty in the federal case last year in Asheville, N.C., but the sentence hasn't been imposed.
While that case unfolded, a public defender in North Carolina told a judge that Lantigua was "the subject of a criminal investigation in ... Florida on closely related and arguably more serious matters."
Lantigua took on big debts for his company before he disappeared, borrowing millions and using insurance policies as collateral for some of them.
The U.S. Attorney's Office and the public defender for the federal district that includes Jacksonville both previously have declined to comment without charges in their territory. Neither responded Thursday morning to questions about Lantigua's presence in Baker County.
That move apparently isn't helping state criminal cases against Lantigua and his wife, Daphne Simpson.
State Attorney's Office spokeswoman Jackelyn Barnard said her agency "has no influence on what the federal prosecutors will do in their case," and that the two cases are being handled separately.
Simpson, 57 has been in the Duval County jail since March, facing eight felony charges involving schemes to defraud and filing false insurance claims.
Simpson was with Lantigua when he was arrested a few miles from the remote mountain home where he was living, but she was allowed to return to Florida, where police booked her on state charges.
A prosecutor said at the time the charges were identical to what Lantigua would face if he was in state custody.
A second arrest warrant has been issued since then that Barnard said involves bank fraud charges and the way Lantigua obtained loans.
Steve Patterson: (904) 359-4263
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