Company sues mom of dead boys over husband’s life insurance

By Anna Wilder and Elisabell Velazquez

GAINESVILLE — An insurance company is suing the mother of two boys killed by her estranged husband over a $4 million life insurance payout which claims she may not have been legally entitled to receive. Meanwhile, she is trying to collect $10 million from her husband’s estate.

The legal battle, just underway in federal court, is the latest twist in the crime earlier this year. It sheds new light on the father’s actions days before the killings and hints at the vast amounts of money at stake for surviving family members.

Paul Reinhart, 46, of Gainesville, fatally shot the couple’s young sons on May 4 before setting fire to the family’s vacation home near Suwannee in western Florida and fatally shooting himself.

Court records in the new lawsuit revealed that Reinhart — a former medical device sales executive — attempted to change two, term-life insurance policies on April 26 to prevent his wife, Minde Reinhart, 42, from collecting any of the money upon his death. They were separated at the time and heading toward divorce.

The policies were worth $2 million each and purchased in 2005 and 2015. They permitted full payouts in the instance of suicide as long as Reinhart hadn’t killed himself for at least two years after buying them.

With the changes, Reinhart sought to designate his sons, Rex, 14, and Brody, 11, as primary beneficiaries. If they had died, Reinhart identified one of his brothers, Konrad Reinhart, 45, of Gainesville, as a secondary beneficiary. Paul Reinhart submitted a signed, notarized document with the requested changes to Fidelity Investments Life Insurance Co.

Reinhart ’s actions add to evidence suggesting he plotted the deadly violence days in advance. Records in a related probate court case showed that Reinhart had updated his will on April 19, just 15 days before he killed his sons and himself, to prevent his wife from receiving any of his assets after 19 years of marriage.

In a related dispute over that change to the will, Mrs. Reinhart’s lawyers said in court records that based on Reinhart’s actions in the days before he died, Konrad Reinhart knew or should have known that her husband was plotting violence.

Fidelity wrote back to Reinhart in a letter dated April 30 saying it was unable to update his policies as requested because he failed to specify the city and state where he had signed the document, which was notarized in Gainesville. The company’s “term beneficiary change form” did not specify on the document that information was required.

It was unclear whether Reinhart received Fidelity’s letter — mailed from the company’s life insurance offices in Atlanta — before he fatally shot his sons and himself four days later. A final report covering the criminal investigation by two sheriff ’s offices and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in the case has been mysteriously delayed for months.

Mrs. Reinhart declined to discuss the new lawsuit through one of her attorneys, Jeff Aaron, of Gray Robinson in Orlando.

This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporters can be reached at awilder@freshtakeflorida.com and evelazquez@freshtakeflorida. com.