‘Dead’ Man and Wife Arrested in Insurance Case : Sleuthing by Company, Help of ‘Little Old Lady’ Uncovered Fraud, Police Say

When the body of a drowned man washed up on a beach in the Philippines two years ago, no one claimed it at first.

But investigators say that a few days later, after word about the drowning got around, some local people showed up and identified the body as that of a visiting relative, a Southern California real estate entrepreneur named Jose Ramirez.

The remains were cremated and paper work indicating the identity of the deceased were forwarded to Ramirez’s wife, Luzviminda, at her home in North Hollywood. Investigators say she used the documentation to collect $28,000 on his life insurance policy with New York Life Insurance Co. But another company, Pacific Mutual, decided to check around a bit before paying off on another $100,000 policy.

And Los Angeles police said Friday that due to some persistent sleuthing by Pacific Mutual, the California Department of Insurance and a “little old lady” who lived next door, Luzviminda Ramirez, 42, and Jose Ramirez, 45--very much alive--were arrested at their Strohm Avenue home Thursday on suspicion of insurance fraud, grand theft and attempted grand theft.

Jerry Treadway, supervising criminal investigator for the Department of Insurance fraud bureau in Los Angeles, said that after the Pacific Mutual investigator arrived in the Philippines, he started looking around for other relatives who might have seen Jose Ramirez.

“Lo and behold, he found some that had seen him after his ‘death,’ ” Treadway said. “Late in ‘83, we got into the case. We learned he was an amateur polo player here, so we went to some of his hangouts. We found others who had seen him.”

There were other interesting discoveries, Treadway said. Months after Ramirez’s reported death, someone took the trouble to pay off all his outstanding traffic citations--”to make sure his record was clean. . . .”

“For someone who’s dead, that doesn’t make much sense,” Treadway said. “But for someone who’s not dead . . . and who’s still using his driver’s license . . . if he was stopped for any reason with those old traffic citations on his record, they might have arrested him and the jig would have been up.”

‘Little Old Lady’

The investigation continued, Treadway said, “and finally, a few weeks ago, we obtained a neighbor, a little old lady, who described a very suspicious routine that was going on next door. . . .

“She said that early each morning, Mrs. Ramirez would go outside and look around to make sure no one was watching. Then this man would come out, jump in the back of the car, and they’d drive away. He’d come back at night under cover of darkness. She said the man matched our description of Mr. Ramirez.”

Treadway said the woman agreed to serve as a lookout and, “not more than three hours after we left her, she called the LAPD and said he was there at the house. They went over and, sure enough, it was him. He still had the driver’s license.”

The Ramirezes were arrested on warrants issued last week. Both remained in custody Friday in lieu of $50,000 bail each. Treadway indicated that no charges were added in connection with the as-yet-unidentified man’s drowning, since Ramirez is believed to have simply taken advantage of the discovery of the body.