Prosecutors: Jailed fraud suspect tried to hire hitman

Jorge Espinosa, the father of a former Miami-Dade cop who resigned after a controversial shooting, is a public adjuster awaiting trial on a massive insurance-fraud scam. But when he was jailed recently, authorities say, he plotted with a fellow inmate to try to hire a hitman to assassinate the prosecutor and star witness in his case.

But the supposed plot won’t result in new charges. After the inmate told prosecutors, an undercover investigation fizzled.

The allegations were concerning enough, however, that the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office asked a judge to keep Espinosa, 62, behind bars before his trial.

Espinosa’s defense lawyer insisted his client did nothing. “There is no evidence and there are no charges,” said defense attorney Juan Gonzalez. “The whole thing seems to be B.S. based on the word of a jailhouse snitch.”

Espinosa was arrested in 2014 as part of a large-scale investigation that netted more than 50 arrests of people charged with cheating insurance companies out of more than $7 million by intentionally setting fires and causing floods in homes across the state.

Prosecutors say Espinosa owned and operated Nationwide Adjusters and worked with recruiters and “finders” across Florida to find homeowners willing to allow him to set fires to or flood their homes before filing insurance claims.

Espinosa is the father of former Miami-Dade police officer Jorge A. Espinosa, who drew intense scrutiny in 2004 after he fatally shot an unarmed teenaged burglar named Leonardo Barquin. Prosecutors declined to file charges, citing insufficient evidence, flawed police work and a state law that allows police to fire at fleeing felons.

But the officer resigned anyway, and took up work in the same business as his father. In 2010, state prosecutors charged the younger Espinosa with a separate insurance scam, one that involved inflating the price of insurance claims. He took a plea last year and accepted probation.