Lawyer: Tipster had 'confidential' leads on Jacksonville businessman's Venezuela death
Lawyer: Tipster had 'confidential' leads on Jacksonville businessman's Venezuela death
By Steve Patterson Fri, Nov 21, 2014 @ 11:33 am
The attorney for relatives of a missing Jacksonville businessman says a tipster tied to national security issues fed him “highly confidential” information for a court fight over the businessman’s reported death in Venezuela.
The information “confirmed that Jose Lantigua is deceased,” but shouldn’t become public because it “is sensitive in nature and relates to matters of national security,” attorney Joshua Woolsey said in an affidavit filed last week in the family’s fight with life insurance companies that refused to pay out on Lantigua’s multimillion-dollar policies. The document didn’t detail the tipster’s information.
Lantigua, who owned Circle K Furniture stores on Jacksonville’s Westside and Southside, was reported dead in April 2013 while traveling in Venezuela, and was reported to have been cremated there.
But a string of insurers have challenged that, with one, Hartford Life and Annuity Insurance Co., telling the family last year that “Mr. Lantigua is alive and living in Venezuela.” Hartford is making its case in state court, while four others are arguing in federal court that they shouldn’t have to pay.
Woolsey said he was researching the death when he contacted a man whose phone number and email Lantigua had given to his wife, Daphne Simpson, before he traveled to South America.
The affidavit said the phone number was for a public affairs office at the Central Intelligence Agency, which didn’t confirm or deny knowing the man Lantigua had mentioned to his wife. But an email Simpson received last fall said the man was constrained by his government job.
More:
http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2014-11-21/story/lawyer-tipster-had-confidential-leads-jacksonville-businessmans?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JacksonvillecomNews+%28Jacksonville+Local+News+%E2%80%93+Jacksonville.com+and+The+Florida+Times-Union%29
