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Homeowner acquitted of insurance fraud charge

By JACOB H. FRIES
Published October 22, 2006

A Palm Harbor man accused of insurance fraud in connection with a 2001 fire that destroyed his waterfront home in Crystal Beach has been acquitted.

Jurors Friday took less than three hours to acquit Shawn Porter, 31, a former physical education teacher at Dunedin Academy, a private school. Porter had faced a felony insurance fraud charge related to a fire at his home at 8 Florida Blvd.

"We've been waiting for this for years," Dale Porter said Monday on his son's behalf. "We just thank God that justice prevailed correctly in this case."

Porter's attorney, Denis de Vlaming, said he was surprised the jury took as long as it did to reach a decision because, in his view, the case was clear-cut.

After the fire, Porter filed a claim of more than $100,000 with Nationwide Insurance, reporting that, among other things, water skis, two televisions and a leather recliner were destroyed.

Sheriff's investigators later accused Porter of lying about the loss of those items and arrested him in May 2002 on the fraud charge. They arrested him again two months later on allegations of arson, a charge later dropped after experts hired by the defense suggested the fire was started by a candle left burning on a coffee table.

De Vlaming said a public adjuster he hired found evidence of the disputed items in the charred home, supporting Porter's insurance claim.

"I thought the case was over then," he said.

It wasn't.

Prosecutor Aaron J. Slavin questioned whether the items the adjuster found had actually been in the home at the time of the fire. The adjuster examined the house more than six months later and in the that period anyone could have entered the property and left, Slavin said.

Porter's insurance claim also exaggerated the amount of his lost property, Slavin said. Fishing equipment, which authorities believed was inexpensive, was listed at $8,000, he said.

Porter bought the home in November 1998 for $160,000. The property was assessed at $142,200 for tax purposes at the time of the fire, but the Pinellas County Property Appraiser estimated then that its value was $169,800, based on recent comparable sales from 1997 through 2000.

Efforts to reach Nationwide Insurance on Monday were unsuccessful.

Jacob H. Fries can be reached at jfries@sptimes.com or 727 445-4156.

[Last modified October 21, 2006, 20:45:14]