5 Earlier Fires Added to Arson-Fraud Indictment

A federal indictment of an Agoura Hills businessman, accused in September of arson-insurance fraud involving his Sun Valley company, has been expanded to charge him with a pattern of racketeering including five fires in the 1970s at three businesses he owned in Massachusetts.

The expanded indictment also asks for forfeiture of any proceeds “obtained directly or indirectly from racketeering activity” by the defendant, Robert Feldman, 55. The indictment says the proceeds include more than $2.5 million in insurance payments Feldman received after the fires.

The original 18-count indictment, returned Sept. 12, charged Feldman with arranging a 1982 fire at his 20,000-square-foot Grow Gear Inc. plant in Sun Valley, which manufactured aircraft parts. The indictment portrayed the arson as the centerpiece of a plot to avoid paying for goods and services from creditors and to defraud an insurance company of $2.6 million.

He collected $2.3 million, the indictment said.

Not-Guilty Plea

Feldman pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released Oct. 10 on $400,000 bail.

The revised indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles Thursday, alleges that Feldman also was responsible for a 1973 fire at Treasure Island, a restaurant he owned in Worcester County, Mass., and for two fires at each of two car washes in Suffolk County, Mass., from 1973 to 1976.

The indictment says he collected $264,000 in insurance after the Treasure Island fire and $16,000 from the car-wash fires.

The indictment also alleges that Feldman and his brother, Albert Feldman of Westlake Village, worked together “for the purpose of defrauding insurance companies and others through repeated acts of arson.” Albert Feldman is not a defendant in the case, however.

‘Nothing to Do With Brother’

Robert Feldman could not be reached for comment Friday. His attorney, A. Brent Carruth of Van Nuys, declined to comment on the new indictment.

Albert Feldman, reached at his home in Westlake Village, said only, “I have nothing to do with my brother anymore.”

The charges in the original indictment carry a maximum penalty of 92 years in prison and a $30,000 fine upon conviction. The addition of the racketeering charge enables prosecutors to also seek forfeiture of proceeds of the alleged schemes.

At the time of the original indictment, prosecutors said the case was the result of a three-year investigation by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Los Angeles City Fire Department.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard M. Callahan Jr., who is prosecuting the case, predicted then that the case would be ready for trial this month.

Callahan could not be reached for comment Friday.