People v. Grady CA2/8

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

After her apartment was burgled in January 2008, Barbara Grady submitted a claim for numerous missing items to State Farm Insurance Company (State Farm), which had issued Grady a renter’s insurance policy. Grady continued to discover that additional items were missing and supplemented her claim with lists of those items. By June 2009, State Farm had issued three checks totaling approximately $23,000 for losses that Grady had been able to verify. Grady later submitted numerous receipts for other items she claimed had been taken: $50,000 for items bought at Louis Vuitton; $47,000 for items bought at Crate & Barrel; and $45,000 for items bought at Brooks Brothers. These receipts triggered an investigation by State Farm, which determined that the receipts were phony. Grady was charged with one count of insurance fraud. She pleaded insanity, and introduced evidence that she had been hospitalized several times for mental illness that manifested itself as auditory hallucinations and paranoia that resulted in the use of poor judgment. A prosecution psychiatric expert testified that Grady was not insane when she committed the crime. The jury convicted Grady of…