Commonwealth v. Risoldi
| Decision Date | 18 August 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 1487 EDA 2019,1487 EDA 2019 |
| Citation | 238 A.3d 434 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Claire A. RISOLDI, Appellant |
| Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
Michael Jay Diamondstein, Philadelphia, for appellant.
Cari L. Mahler, Office of Attorney General, Norristown, for Commonwealth, appellee.
Claire A. Risoldi (Risoldi) appeals from the May 17, 2019 judgment of sentence imposed by the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County (trial court) following her conviction by jury of dealing in unlawful proceeds, two counts of insurance fraud, theft by deception, criminal attempt—theft by deception, and conspiracy—theft by deception.1 After careful review, we affirm in part and vacate in part and remand for resentencing.
We glean the following facts from the certified record.2 On October 22, 2013, Risoldi's home, known as "Clairemont," caught fire.3 This was the third fire at Clairemont in five years, with one prior fire in 2009 and one in 2010. No one was home when the 2013 fire began, though members of the Risoldi family returned to Clairemont during the firefighting efforts. Four fire departments responded to extinguish the fire and additional fire companies provided water to the efforts. The fire was concentrated in the attic of the home with many firefighters from the various companies coming in and out of the home to fight the fire.
After the fire, the Buckingham Police Department stationed several patrol officers outside of Clairemont overnight to ensure that there was no unauthorized entry into the building. However, restoration crews began working immediately to remove contents from the house and prevent further damage, including during that night.
Clairemont suffered significant damages from fire and water that required costly rebuilding as well as replacement or refurbishment of much of its contents. Clairemont and its contents were insured through AIG Insurance (AIG). Clairemont was covered by a homeowners' insurance policy for damage to the structure and its contents, and all residents of Clairemont were beneficiaries to the policy. In addition, Risoldi carried a collections insurance policy that provided additional coverage for certain enumerated pieces of jewelry. At the time of the fire, 55 pieces were covered by the collections policy. Following the fire, Risoldi and her family submitted claims to AIG under both policies. They sought coverage for the structural damage and rebuilding of Clairemont, pieces of jewelry that allegedly disappeared from the house during the fire, replacement costs for over $2 million in drapes that had been destroyed by the fire, restoration costs for a mural that had been painted on one of the ceilings as well as Alternative/Additional Living Expenses (ALE) that they incurred while Clairemont was being rebuilt.
During the course of investigating the Risoldis' claims, AIG became suspicious that some of the costs for which the Risoldis sought reimbursement were inflated. Relevant to this appeal, AIG believed that the Risoldis had falsely claimed that they spent $1.2 million to replace drapes following the 2010 fire and were seeking an even higher amount to replace the drapes again after the 2013 fire. In addition, AIG was skeptical of the Risoldis' allegation that over $10 million worth of jewelry had been stolen from Clairemont during the firefighting efforts. After a lengthy investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), Risoldi was charged on January 22, 2015, with various counts related to insurance fraud, theft, conspiracy, receiving stolen property and dealing in unlawful proceeds.4
The Commonwealth filed a motion seeking to bypass the preliminary hearing on February 4, 2015, and it was denied on March 3, 2015. The preliminary hearing was subsequently held from March 30 through April 7, 2015. After numerous pre-trial motions and proceedings, the Commonwealth filed a motion to recuse the trial court on April 18, 2016. The trial court denied the motion to recuse on August 1, 2016, to which the Commonwealth filed an appeal from that decision on August 23, 2016. Upon review, we affirmed the trial court's decision and subsequently denied reconsideration. See Commonwealth v. Risoldi , 2677 EDA 2016, 2017 WL 3485054 (Pa. Super. Aug. 15, 2017), recons. denied , Oct. 19, 2017 (" Risoldi I "). The case was remanded to the trial court on December 1, 2017.
On remand, co-defendant Carl Risoldi (Carl) filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 600 and Risoldi filed a motion to adopt that motion to dismiss. The trial court decided the issues based on the briefs of the parties and denied the motion on April 23, 2018. Risoldi proceeded to trial on January 15, 2019, and on February 5, 2019, the jury found her guilty of the above-mentioned charges.5
The verdict form allowed the jury to make specific factual findings regarding the criminal conduct supporting the convictions for count 2, insurance fraud, and count 4, theft by deception. The verdict form appeared as follows:
For count 2, the jury found Risoldi guilty and circled the drapery claim, mural claim and ALE claim as the fraudulent conduct. For count 4, the jury found Risoldi guilty and circled the drapery claim and the ALE claim as the underlying conduct. Through a special interrogatory on count 4, the jury found that the value of money fraudulently obtained for the drapery and ALE claim was $2,750,000. The OAG charged Risoldi with a separate count of insurance fraud related only to the jewelry claim and a count of criminal attempt—theft by deception related to the jewelry claim. Risoldi was found guilty of both of those counts, and on the count of criminal attempt—theft by deception, the jury found that Risoldi had attempted to obtain $10 million.
We now turn to a more detailed recitation of the evidence adduced at trial, particularly with regard to the jewelry and drapes claims.
Risoldi resided at Clairemont with her son, Carl, his wife, Sheila, and their children.6 On October 16, 2013, less than a week before the fire, Risoldi was married at a wedding ceremony held at Clairemont. Risoldi had a collection of jewelry that she stored in a safe-deposit box at a local bank. On the day of the wedding, Carl retrieved the collection from the bank and brought it back to Clairemont so that Risoldi could wear some of the pieces. On the day of the fire, Carl intended to leave work early to return the jewelry to the bank, which he left in white tote bags labeled "Risoldi Law Offices"7 on a chair in the foyer of Clairemont. Risoldi said that she noticed that the tote bags were missing from the foyer immediately after the fire.
Notably, Risoldi had left Clairemont to run errands shortly before the fire broke out. Even though she left the jewelry sitting in the foyer at Clairemont, she did not arm her alarm system when she left the house. She said that she never armed the alarm system when she ran errands. Additionally, when investigators asked where Risoldi had gone that morning, they learned that her errands had taken her to an area only a couple minutes from the bank where her safety-deposit boxes were located.
Lieutenant John R. Landis of the Buckingham Police Department, a longtime friend of the Risoldi family, was one of the officers to respond to the scene of the 2013 fire. He arrived on scene and stayed for approximately two hours, during which he spoke with all of the members of the family. While he was at the scene, none of the Risoldis told Lieutenant Landis about the jewelry in the foyer or asked him to retrieve it. A couple of days after the fire, Risoldi called Lieutenant Landis upset that items in the house had been moved and that the house was a mess but did not report any missing jewelry at that time.
Approximately ten to fourteen days after the fire, Risoldi called Lieutenant Landis again. She said that her private investigator was looking into the fire and that a bag of jewelry that had been left in the foyer had been moved to a bathroom. She indicated that some of the jewelry was now missing but that they had found other pieces throughout the home. She did not provide the value of the missing jewelry. Lieutenant Landis asked Risoldi if she was reporting a crime. Risoldi responded that she was not prepared to report the missing items as a crime but that her insurance company and auditor were looking into it. Lieutenant Landis advised her to create an inventory of the pieces to report as missing property to the police.
Risoldi called Lieutenant Landis a third time and asked him to meet with her at her daughter's law office to review some interviews her private investigator had conducted with neighbors following the fire. At that meeting, Risoldi again did not report the missing jewelry and Lieutenant Landis told her that he could not be involved with any investigation related to the fire because of his personal relationship with the family.
Finally, Risoldi called Lieutenant Landis once again on the day before Thanksgiving, approximately one month after the fire, and asked how to report a theft. For the first time, Risoldi told Lieutenant Landis that she was missing $2.8 to $3 million in jewelry after the fire, but had not reported it sooner because her private investigator and insurance company had told her not to report the theft until she was sure she could not find the jewelry herself. Lieutenant Landis told her to report...
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