People v. Lee CA1/2

BACKGROUND

I. The Investigation On February 10, 2015, San Pablo Police Officer Matthew Brown responded to the scene of a reported burglary, where Lee’s wife told him she had returned home to find all the Lees’ property missing. Lee subsequently filed a theft claim under his renter’s insurance policy with Homesite Insurance (Homesite), telling the insurer that the allegedly stolen property exceeded $50,000 in value and that Lee had hired an attorney to assist him with the claim. On March 12, 2015, Officer Brown called California Department of Insurance Detective Clint Herndon and told him the burglary reported by Lee’s wife on February 10 involved “suspicious circumstances that he thought might involve an insurance claim.” Herndon then met with Brown and Suzie Short, an investigator working for Homesite. After Brown and Short showed Herndon evidence they had gathered on their own, Herndon decided to open his own fraud investigation into Lee’s theft claim. In the course of his investigation, Herndon discovered that Lee had communicated with Officer Brown by e-mail from a Gmail account. Homesite’s initial acknowledgement of Lee’s theft claim had been sent to the same Gmail address…