United States v. DeGeorge

Rex DeGeorge (defendant) had his yacht Principe di Pictor scuttled off Italy as part of a scheme to collect inflated insurance proceeds, after commissioning the yacht, inflating its value through sham transactions, and hiding his ownership from the insurer because he had lost and collected insurance on three prior boats and feared he could not get new insurance in his own name. At trial, the prosecution introduced the fact that DeGeorge had lost three prior insured boats to explain why he distanced himself from ownership of the Principe, but the district court excluded evidence that he had actually collected on those prior losses. DeGeorge was convicted and appealed.