EVERETT — At first the insurance company believed the Lynnwood man’s story about a thief breaking into his car outside a greeting card store and making off with 212 expensive silk ties.
Why would anyone lie about ties?
Carlton Henry Wopperer said he’d been collecting high-end ties for more than 30 years. He told police the ties were in plastic containers in his car because he had brought them to a Bothell quilt shop to see if he could have the ties attached to a quilt for a wall display.
Pemco Insurance last year paid Wopperer more than $30,000 to replace the ties he’d reported stolen.
But Wopperer’s credibility began to unravel six months later when he reported that the 212 ties he bought to replace his old collection also had fallen into the hands of thieves.
This time he said he was moving and someone broke into his car when he was inside an Everett pharmacy and made off with the ties.
Before doling out any more money for ties, an insurance adjuster did a little digging into the first claim Wopperer made in January 2009. That’s when she discovered that the ties Wopperer bought over four months to rebuild his collection allegedly were returned to the stores shortly after he bought them, court papers said.
Documents show that Wopperer had submitted the receipts anyway and collected thousands of dollars for ties that he didn’t own, according to the Washington State Patrol. Pemco denied Wopperer’s second claim and reported the case to the state Office of the Insurance Commissioner.
Insurance fraud ends up driving up the costs of premiums for everyone else, said Rich Roesler, a spokesman for the state Office of the Insurance Commissioner.
Snohomish County prosecutors on Tuesday charged Wopperer, 49, with two counts of filing false claims.
Investigators believe Wopperer only purchased the ties from high-end stores in order to get receipts to submit to the company for his false claims, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Coleen St. Clair said.
In some cases, he returned the ties for a refund within minutes of the purchase.
When detectives asked questions, employees remembered Wopperer, in part because he’d told a strange story.
Wopperer told the sales clerk at the Butch Blume store in Seattle that he was buying ties for employees. He picked out dozens of ties, each valued from $150 to $200, Roesler said.
Wopperer allegedly returned later that day and asked for a refund. He told the clerk that his bookkeeper recommended he give his employees money instead of ties. He insisted on getting cash and the clerk was forced to go to the bank to retrieve about $5,000 to return to Wopperer, St. Clair wrote.
“As far as we can tell, he bought hundreds of ties but only kept about four or five,” Roesler said.
Investigators later learned that it was the third time since 2000 that Wopperer had reported his ties stolen. A different insurance company in 2000 paid him nearly $17,000 to replace ties that he said were stolen from his car while he was parked at a Lynnwood mall.
Wopperer has appeared to make more than $50,000 off his tie scam, Roesler said. He was asking for another $35,000 from Pemco before the insurance company launched an investigation.
It’s unclear if Wopperer actually has a tie collection, Roesler said.
A national database showed that Wopperer had made at least 10 insurance claims since 1998. Wopperer told an adjuster he’d only made one other claim before the recent ones involving ties. He said he filed a claim after a house fire caused smoke damage.
Part of that claim was to clean his silk tie collection.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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