Biden grants clemency to Jacksonville businessman who faked death so his wife could collect $5M in life insurance money

Jose Lantigua, 71, is the former owner of the Circle K furniture stores in Jacksonville

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – President Joe Biden granted clemency to a Jacksonville man who faked his death in South America so his wife could collect $5 million in life insurance money.

RELATED: Man who faked death gets 14-year prison sentence

Jose Lantigua, 71, the former owner of the Circle K furniture stores in Jacksonville pleaded guilty in 2016 to bank fraud and committing to wire and mail fraud.

He was originally sentenced to 14 years in prison with five years of supervised release.

Court documents said Lantigua’s business was $11 million in debt when he started lying to creditors and his wife, Daphne Simpson, telling her a drug cartel was out to get him and their lives were in danger.

Lantigua then traveled to Venezuela and faked his death. His wife even held a funeral for him, and then filed to collect on his life insurance policies.

RELATED: A Florida Navy veteran pleaded guilty to a non-violent crime in 1997. He was pardoned by President Biden this week

In 2017, the government used facial recognition to catch Lantigua when he applied for a passport pretending to be an African-American man and listed his wife as his emergency contact.

The U.S. District Judge considered Simpson a victim even though she spent much of the money. She still had to take care of the details after Lantigua faked his death, including helping him live under a new identity.

Lantigua told the court it was all his fault and he was the reason that his wife was involved.

Simpson told News4JAX that she only helped him to protect her family and that he was dying from an incurable brain disease.

“He said he had six months, thereabouts, to live,” Simpson said. “I remember that I sobbed for hours in his arms, thinking he was dying.”

The government was seeking $2.6 million in restitution from the couple. Simpson was sentenced to five years of supervised release and ordered to pay $100 per month toward restitution.

Jim Kittrell is the founder of Circle K furniture stores. His children sold the company to Lantigua in 2008 and he opened a second store in 2011. Kittrell said he was stunned to learn Lantigua faked his death.

“I was really surprised that he did something like this because he was a very gentle man,” Kittrell said.

The family got the business back from Lantigua and worked to restore its reputation.

“It’s been hard and the reason is because it was such big news that Circle K was closing they had a closeout that lasted six to eight months,” Alice Pope, co-owner and manager of Circle K said.

Many people were left stranded by Lantigua. It damaged the Kittrell family name but now their original customers and new ones have returned, but they will never trust Lantigua again.

They also know that he is out of prison.

“I’m ok with it because he served a lot of time for what he did,” Pope said. “He’ll never be able to erase what he did and to his family. I’m okay I don’t ever want to go in business with him.”

Lantigua was released to community confinement in May 2021 meaning he was at home or at a halfway house as he continued serving his sentence until it ended on Dec. 20, 2024.

News4JAX reached out to Lantigua’s most recent attorney on record but couldn’t get in touch with her.

The clemency followed a broad pardon for his son Hunter, who was prosecuted for gun and tax crimes. Biden is under pressure from advocacy groups to pardon broad swaths of people, including those on federal death row, before the Trump administration takes over in January. He’s also weighing whether to issue preemptive pardons to those who investigated Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and are facing possible retribution when he takes office.


Loading...