Arson Fraud Update — Ohio

Amount: $400,000

Initial Fraud of the Week, Published January 30, 2017.

A man in Ohio was betrayed by his own pacemaker when he was indicted on charges of arson and insurance fraud when his house burnt down and he attempted to file for recovery under his insurance policy. A fire last September destroyed the alleged fraudster's home. In the 911 call he told the dispatcher that he had an artificial heart. He stated that he was able to pack some suitcases and throw them out of his bedroom window after he broke the glass with a walking stick. A cardiologist told police that such actions would be “highly improbable” because of his medical condition. The police sought information including the heart rate, pacer demand, and cardiac rhythms before, during, and after the fire. The retrieved information did not match the story told to police by the fraudster. The police stated that the information retrieved from the pacemaker was an excellent investigative tool, and was one of the key pieces of evidence that gave rise to the charges of arson and insurance fraud. There was also gasoline found on the shoes, pants and shirt of the defendant, and multiple points of origin of the fire in the home. This is the first time the Middleton police have used information from a heart device to make an arrest.

Update:

In what is believed to be the first case using data from a beating heart as evidence, a judge in Middletown, Ohio ruled this week that evidence from a pacemaker used to get a man indicted for arson can be admitted at trial.

The arsonist was indicted in January on felony arson charges and insurance fraud for starting a fire in his home in September 2016. He told the police he was asleep when the fire started, and that he awoke to his home in a blaze and packed some belongings in a suitcase before escaping the home and taking his things to his car.

After other reasons to suspect arson arose, the police obtained a search warrant for the electronic data stored on the defendant's cardiac pacing device. The cardiologist who reviewed the data deemed it “highly improbable” that the defendant could have collected, packed, and removed the number of items from the house, exited the bedroom window, and carried all of the large and heavy objects to his car during the short period of time where his heart rate was recorded as elevated. Despite defense attorney's arguments that the evidence should be thrown out due to the search being an invasion of constitutional rights and unreasonable seizure of private information, the county prosecutor pointed to instances where police can obtain medical records and even blood samples for use as evidence in criminal cases. The Common Pleas Court Judge ruled against the defense, deciding that just because pacemaker data is individual to the person who has the pacemaker implanted, does not mean that it is more private than blood samples or the like. The defendant has posted bond and will be tried on December 4, 2017.