Reservist Held in Alleged Insurance Scam

Sheriff’s deputies arrested an Army Reserve sergeant who allegedly tried to collect more than $100,000 for a phony life insurance claim, officials said Thursday.

Harold Dwayne Peterson, 59, of Laguna Beach is accused of forging the seal used by the Orange County coroner’s office and the county recorder’s office on death certificates in an effort to collect $100,000 from Minnesota Mutual Life Insurance Co. in St. Paul, Sheriff’s Department Lt. Robert Rivas said.

Peterson, a full-time reservist based in Santa Ana, was arrested Wednesday about 11 a.m. at the Airporter Inn Hotel on MacArthur Boulevard in Irvine by undercover sheriff’s officers, who set up a meeting with him to deliver a bogus check from the Minnesota company, Rivas said.

Earlier this month, Rivas said, Peterson collected $119,037 in insurance from American Founders Life Insurance Co. in Texas.

Peterson was arrested on suspicion of attempted grand theft and forgery and taken to Orange County Jail, Rivas said.

Rivas said Peterson took out a life insurance policy in April, 1982, on a friend who had died 14 months earlier. He allegedly stole or forged the county seal required on death certificates and gave a phony death certificate to the Minnesota company, claiming that the friend died Dec. 27, 1988. Peterson used phony stamps that were facsimiles of the recorder’s office seal and the sheriff-coroner’s seal, Rivas said. The stamps might have been made in Hong Kong, which Peterson visited during his Army travels, Rivas said.

When sheriff’s officials searched Peterson’s home, they found phony printing stamps, several other death certificates and evidence that he used the same kind of certificate for the Texas and Minnesota claims.

Officials raised Peterson’s bail from $50,000 to $500,000 when they learned about money put out by the Texas company.

“It is unknown if any other companies have lost money because of forgeries by Peterson,” Rivas said.