A Niagara Falls man was indicted by the State Supreme Court for attempting to swindle an insurance company out of $32,458 through a fraudulent burglary claim.
Kevin A. Ashby, a native of Wrobel Towers, was charged with third-degree insurance fraud and attempted third-degree grand larceny. Justice Richard C. Kloch Sr. ordered the convict to be held without bail, to await prosecution on Mar. 16.
If convicted, Ashby faces up to seven years in prison.
Assistant District Attorney Heather A. Sloma said that Ashby had been living in Canada until his permit to stay in the country expired on May 2014.
Canada has since barred Ashby from returning.
When Ashby moved back to the U.S., he applied for social services in Niagara County on May 20, 2014, claiming that he was homeless. He then took out an insurance policy three days later with United Frontier Mutual Insurance Co. About a month later, on June 13, 2014, he claimed that his South Avenue residence in the Falls was robbed. The following month, Ashby bumped up the $750 loss estimate in his initial police report.
Evidence gathered suggested that Ashby had been reimbursed for the same possessions in a prior burglary claim in Ontario with another insurer. Sloma and her colleague, Joel M. Grundy, produced witnesses who testified that Ashby only had a few items in his apartment, bringing almost nothing over from his previous residence in Canada.
Ashby’s lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Alan J. Roscetti, turned down a pre-trial offer to plead guilty to a felony charge that would have been reduced to a misdemeanor case should Ashby choose to undergo a year of successful mental health treatment.
