Husband and wife arrested for sinkhole lie

A husband and wife were arrested by Federal marshals this month for allegedly not disclosing the truth about a sinkhole that split the living room in two.

Glenn and Kathryn Jasen were indicted on wire fraud charges, alleging that they had lied about a sinkhole on their property, which they had sold to a family with five children. An investigation by 8 On Your Side found that Glenn had claimed a large sum of insurance money for repairing the sinkhole, but did not fix it, despite claiming to have done so on his disclosure form during the selling process.

"Suddenly this false statement takes on a life of it own and before you know it the (defendant) is looking at time in the federal penitentiary," said Jasen's lawyer, Victor Martinez.

When lies are normally discovered on disclosure forms, though, the culprits are charged with a civil lawsuit, rather than a federal court hearing.

"It isn’t a mortgage loan application," Martinez told WFLA. "It isn’t an IRS return. There’s no notice that you’re signing under any kind of criminal penalty, and in fact, there are statements in the disclosure form that says the buyer can’t rely as a warranty as to any of the disclosures."

While the sinkhole in question was not a major one, they can vary in size significantly, with larger ones swallowing whole swathes of the street. In San Francisco last year, one sinkhole was so large - reportedly 20 feet by 30 feet wide and 10 feet deep - that someone created a fake rental listing for the hole on Craigslist.