Former Proprietor Of Mansion With Mercedes Buried In The Yard Was One Sketchy Dude

Final week, landscapers found an unidentified automobile buried within the yard of a $15 million mansion in Atherton, California. For those who learn that story and bought the sensation one thing prison needed to have occurred, you weren’t alone. We felt the identical manner. Whereas we nonetheless don’t know precisely what occurred, new info appears to verify our preliminary suspicions have been removed from unfounded.

NBC Bay Space studies that the automobile, a Mercedes convertible that seems to be a Nineteen Nineties SL, is out of the bottom and at the moment being examined for any proof that will level to what really occurred. Police say they nonetheless don’t know why the automobile was buried, however KRON4 says it was reported stolen in 1992. So insurance coverage fraud appears doubtless, though it’s attainable the insurance coverage fraud was linked to a different crime.

That’s not essentially the most thrilling replace on this planet, however the info that’s come out about the home’s former proprietor, Johnny Bocktune Lew? That’s very, very attention-grabbing.

Lew, who died in 2015 on the age of 77, had a prison historical past and at one level reportedly advised police he was concerned in organized crime. Not solely was he arrested for allegedly murdering his girlfriend within the ‘60s, he was later convicted of the tried homicide of one other individual in 1977.

He wasn’t a stranger to insurance coverage fraud, both. In 1999, he was arrested for planning to sink his yacht (due to course he had a yacht) to assert the insurance coverage cash. On the time, it was presumably “the most important single case of insurance coverage fraud the state has seen.”

Lew recruited individuals from San Joaquin County to destroy his yacht, a modern vessel greater than 50 ft lengthy, officers mentioned.

“We’re not giving all the precise particulars,” mentioned Scott Edelen, spokesman for the Division of Insurance coverage. “It was in San Joaquin County the place the terrorist threats occurred. He mentioned if anybody divulged his scheme, he would have them killed or kill them.”

Lew allegedly supplied $50,000 money to have the vessel, which was housed on the Redwood Metropolis Marina, taken to worldwide waters west of the Golden Gate and sunk. He connected with undercover fraud investigators, who agreed to maintain his boat, authorities mentioned.

“The staging of the theft was taken care of,” Edelen mentioned. “They drove it out of the marina and introduced it again in below cowl of darkness and put it in storage for proof.”

Lew was in China on the time of the staging, and when he returned, he assumed the yacht had been destroyed, Edelen mentioned. Lew allegedly paid $30,000 to the insurance-fraud investigators and reported the yacht stolen.

The identical article additionally clarifies that Lew claimed to be related to the Chinese language Triad syndicate and that he spent a complete of six years in jail for his earlier two convictions.

For those who’re considering committing insurance coverage fraud on a Mercedes is fairly low stakes for a man who owned a multi-million-dollar yacht. You’re not alone. “I feel it’s loopy. How may you have got a spot like this? Property values so excessive, and also you’re scamming like, I don’t know, $8,000 automobile. It simply doesn’t make any sense,” one Atherton resident advised NBC Bay Space.

Contemplating all of Lew’s different crimes, it sounds just like the dude has a degree. All indicators level to extra crimes (past fundamental insurance coverage fraud).