The tale Patrick Jeffries spun to the Madison County deputy seemed plausible -- at first. Jeffries, the owner of Kong Supplements in Godfrey, Illinois, told police on April 11 that an unknown number of suspects had broken into his store overnight, kicked in an interior door, smashed a large screen television and nabbed more than $2,000 worth of nutritional supplements.
But police now say the break-in Jeffries reported never actually happened.
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Jeffries eventually collected $6,000 from State Farm Insurance to cover the losses. Yet, four months later, a separate incident pushed investigators to take a closer look at the April burglary.
On August 21, an investor with Kong Supplements told police that Jeffries forged his name on credit and loan applications. According to a release from Madison County Sheriff's Office, that complaint led police to re-examine the April burglary. An investigator assigned to the forgery claim developed evidence that Jeffries wasn't the victim of a crime. Police say Jeffries faked the burglary, filed a false police report and defrauded his own insurance company.
Captain Mike Dixon of the Madison County Sheriff's Department declined to go into specifics of what evidence tipped the investigator off to Jeffries' alleged scheme, citing the ongoing criminal investigation and future court proceedings.
"This was a false claim," says Dixon of the April burglary. "He was actually the one who went to the business, staged the scene and a made the false report."
Police located and arrested Jeffries at a supplement store in Affton on Friday, and a judge set his bond at $100,000. He is now facing three felony charges for forgery, insurance fraud and disorderly conduct.
Follow Danny Wicentowski on Twitter at @D_Towski. E-mail the author at [email protected]
