Lovers, ex-husbands: Fraud ring tale gets juicy

Among the 35 arrests in a homeowners-insurance fraud ring in Florida’s Miami-Dade County are a public adjustor, named the ring leader, and her “one-time lover,” The Miami-Herald reported Tuesday.

A cozy cluster of homeowners and public adjusters — and an ex-husband and police officer —are now facing charges as part of what authorities reported to the news outlet as a widespread scheme that put in insurance claims on phony or exaggerated damage to homes.

Alleged ringleader Barbara Gonzalez, a public adjuster who ran a company called Rubicon Group in West Miami-Dade, was booked Tuesday morning.

The Miami-Dade police told reporters that in one instance she helped her one-time lover named Felix Bravo, also charged, file a fake $75,000 claim of water damage to his house in January 2017. When the insurance company investigated, they found that the plumber who supposedly fixed the damage didn’t exist and the receipt submitted was fake, according to the arrest report, accessed by the newspaper.

In another instance she and her ex-husband Miami-Dade Police Lt. Alexander Diaz de Villegas submitted phony documents to get over $100,000 from an insurance company for three separate damage claims dating back to 2013, according to the newspaper.