Fugitives Wash Up on Island

A fugitive San Jose, Calif., couple ended up in a Puerto Rican detention center Aug. 9 following their capture at a hideaway on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. The couple disappeared nearly seven months ago after allegedly defrauding 700 insurance customers of $10.3 million through their ISU Diligent Insurance Agency,

The San Jose Mercury News reported that Robert Kent Morgan, 37, and Kimberly J. Morgan, 36—who prosecutors say carefully crafted false identities for themselves, their two children and a nanny before they fled—already had set up a web marketing business on the island before authorities there arrested them on a $10-million fugitive warrant.

Although the capture of the Morgans ends one of the county’s most high-profile fugitive cases, the fate of insurance customers they left behind is unclear. Preliminary investigation shows the Morgans probably spent most of the missing money before they were arrested and jailed, authorities said.

According to the Mercury-News report, Robert Morgan is charged with seven felony theft counts for “allegedly issuing hundreds of bogus insurance policies to small firms and pocketing the premiums, defrauding insurance and premium financing companies and pocketing the investments of individuals who put money into annuities offered by the Morgan firm.”

The couple operated their insurance agency in South San Jose from 1987 until the state Department of Insurance shut it down in September. In December, after the Morgans were confronted with investigation findings, the couple begged the prosecutor to let them spend the holidays with their families, promising they would surrender the next month. They reneged on that promise Jan. 14.

The Morgans were taken to a federal detention center in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where they await a hearing to extradite them to Santa Clara County.