The State - News from March 10, 1985

A man who called himself the “carpet king” of Oakland has been convicted by a federal court jury of recruiting an arsonist to burn down his store in 1982 to defraud an insurance company out of $1.2 million. Leon Heskett, 56, owner of the Carpet Coliseum and Heskett’s Carpets, and one of his employees, Tyrone David, 47, of Oakland were each convicted of 11 counts of mail fraud. The mail fraud charges arose from letters that were sent to collect $1.2 million from Transamerica Insurance Co.