In early summer 2005, fire broke out at gay nightclubs in Texas and Arkansas and at a Virginia church whose national board had just endorsed same-sex marriages. Authorities suspected arson.
That climate of hate inspired fear in many gays. But for Christopher Michael Robertson, it inspired a fake hate crime designed to steal insurance money.
In July, Robertson and partner Paul Day returned from shopping to find that fire had gutted the home they shared in Kings Manor Mobile Home Park in Lakeland, Fla.
“Die fag'' was spray-painted on the front steps of the mobile home. Several household valuables, including a TV and a laptop computer, also were missing. The couple said they had invested $15,000 in renovations over the previous three months, and the fire had ruined all of it.
Harassed by bigots
Day, who had lived in the mobile home park for two years, said he had faced anti-gay harassment before. Rocks also were thrown at the house where he’d previously lived, and his mailbox was riddled with gunshot. At the trailer park, teens and young adults taunted him as he checked his mail.
But the ensuing publicity brought the couple unexpected support. Sympathizers set up an account for donations, and websites and blogs decried the bigotry the couple had faced. It seemed likely that the arsonist, if caught, would be prosecuted for a hate crime.
But Robertson soon admitted he’d started the fire, pouring a flammable substance over the carpet and igniting it.
His fake hate crime had dual motives.
Wanted insurance money
One goal was pure profit: He lied to his insurer that someone had stolen the couple’s household goods. But in fact, Robertson had stashed the missing items in a storage unit and simply wanted an insurance payday. He also used the hate crime as a scare tactic to try to persuade his partner to move. “I don't want to be here anymore. It's stressing me out," he told the Orlando Sentinel.
Robertson got his wish and his new address is a state prison where he’ll spend the next 18 months for arson and several fraud-related claims. Day wasn’t charged.
Several schemers have faked hate crimes in recent years to steal insurance money. Nicholas and Tracey Gatlin, for example, torched their Klein, Tex. home for an insurance payday. The African-American couple spray-painted racial slurs on the interior walls to make the crime appear to be a racially driven arson.
Insurance cons that prey on people’s sense of social justice raise the question: Will people grow suspicious and cynical when real hate crimes are committed? How many times can we be fooled before our sense of moral outrage is dulled by the greed of con artists?
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