5 Men Arrested in Case Involving Sinking of Yacht

Two Orange County men who own a 43-foot yacht insured for $110,000 have been arrested for allegedly paying a man to scuttle the boat and filing false insurance claims on the loss, Long Beach police said Thursday.

Joseph Strauss, 60, of Villa Park, and Oscar Wills, 60, of Orange, were booked on suspicion of soliciting a felony and falsifying insurance claims on the yacht Kamilo, which has a replacement value of $250,000 because of its all-wood construction, according to Long Beach Police Detectives Paul Chastain and Jim Harmon.

Ray Davison, 44, of Los Alamitos, who allegedly was paid $5,000 to scuttle the boat, was booked for grand theft. Loren Creasey, 30, and Thomas Merrill, 44, both of Long Beach, who allegedly stripped equipment from the boat before it sank, were charged with receiving stolen property.

The five were arrested between July 24 and 30, and each was released on $5,000 bail.

The boat had been for sale for the past year, but no buyers had been found, Harmon said.

Before sinking the ship, Davison stripped it of its radar, its radio direction finder and its marine radio, valued at about $7,000, Harmon said, adding that Davison told Creasey and other friends he would be scuttling the boat soon and invited them to take from it what they wanted.

Boat Was Stripped

Harmon said Creasey then told Merrill, a yacht owner who employed Creasey as a deckhand, that he could take what he wanted from the Kamilo.

On July 12, after it was stripped, Davison allegedly took the boat, with a motorboat in tow, 14 miles off Newport Beach to a place the sea charts indicated would be deep enough to prevent salvage. Once there, police said, he removed the sea cocks, waited two hours until it filled with water and sank, and then returned to shore in the motorboat.

A portion of the boat’s cabin top floated to the surface and was discovered the next day by a passing boat. Attached to the section was part of the windshield, and attached to the windshield was a “For Sale” sign--with the owners’ names on it.

Harmon said Strauss reported that his boat, berthed in Long Beach, had been stolen that same day. Strauss “seemed very nonchalant about it, not in the least bit upset,” Harmon said. In addition, Strauss insisted that the replacement value be listed and not the purchase price, Harmon added.

Strauss and Wills filed a $110,000 claim with the Hartford Insurance Group, Harmon said. A Hartford representative in San Francisco declined to comment on the case.