Businessman Once Thought Dead Will Plead Guilty To Fraud

Oct. 19--The Jacksonville businessman arrested in North Carolina while court fights unfolded over his reported death in Venezuela told a federal judge Monday he'll plead guilty to passport fraud and identity theft.

Jose Lantigua has been jailed in Asheville, N.C. since March, when investigators stopped him and his wife in a Jeep they tailed from a remote mountain home.

The former owner of Circle K furniture stores had been reported dead and cremated during a visit to Venezuela in 2013. Family members and businesses he borrowed money from filed claims on life insurance policies worth $9 million he had taken out earlier.

But last year, facial-recognition software flagged a photo of him that was filed in Buncombe County, N.C. with a passport application under another man's name.

Paperwork filed Monday gave a judge in Asheville "notice of his intent to plead guilty," but didn't close out the case -- or settle a tangle of other investigations.

His public defender, Mary Ellen Coleman, had told the judge Lantigua was "the subject of a criminal investigation in ... Florida on closely related and arguably more serious matters."

She said in August that Lantigua, 62, was exploring chances of settling the cases in both states at once through rules that allow a defendant to be transferred between federal district, as long as he commits to plead guilty.

U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger had given Coleman until Monday to report a plea deal, but her new notice didn't make any mention of charges in Florida.

State prosecutors in Jacksonville have an arrest warrant on fraud charges for Lantigua, but he won't be released to face those until any federal charges are resolved.

Steve Patterson: (904) 359-4263

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