A couple who unlawfully claimed an insured loss when a town of Bagley bar burned each were sentenced Thursday in federal court to five years in prison and ordered to repay the insurer $93,127.
Jessica A. Miller, 38, and Donald Halbur Jr., 33, both of Crivitz, had pleaded guilty to mail fraud in connection with a July 2010 fire that burned Miller’s The Jaded Bar near Suring.
Miller and Halbur falsely informed Badger Mutual Insurance and Auto-Owners Insurance that the cause of the fire was accidental, despite knowing Drew Christensen, 29, of Suring, previously told them he set the fire, according to the plea agreements filed in court.
Christensen had set a number of fires in the area dating to 2009, including Miller’s house in Marinette County in June 2011.
Miller had asked Christensen to burn down her house so she could receive an insurance settlement. She received a $268,000 settlement and used it to pay off her mortgage and buy The Jaded Bar, according to plea agreements.
Christensen subsequently confessed to setting Miller’s house and bar fires and starting fires at the Klondike Community Church and a bar, trailer home and garage. He was sentenced last year in federal, state and county courts to a combined 19 years in prison.
Miller and Halbur were sentenced in Marinette County in October to five years in prison for conspiring with Christensen to set Miller’s house fire. Their federal sentences imposed Thursday are to run concurrent with their Marinette County sentences.
Miller said she did not ask Christensen to set fire to her bar. On the day of the fire, Christensen asked Miller if she wanted the bar burnt down. Miller “unequivocally” said no, according to a sentencing memo Miller’s attorney, Steven Richards, filed with the court.
That same evening Christensen called Halbur and said the bar was on fire. Christensen lived across the street from the bar.
The Jaded Bar had been closed nearly 20 years when Miller bought it. It took a month to reopen the bar, but business was good, according to the memo. The tavern had character with its old wooden bar. Miller and Halbur lived upstairs in an apartment.
Both Halbur and Miller filled out insurance documents, prepared inventories of items lost in the fire and mailed them, according to the plea agreements.
Miller received a $26,000 settlement from Auto-Owners for personal property she lost in the fire and $93,127 from Badger Mutual for damage to the building on County Road Z, according to the plea agreements.
The Jaded Bar was rebuilt but without the upstairs apartment, according to her attorney’s memo.
She lost “prime summer business” after the fire, and the insurance proceeds went to a number of construction liens she had.
“Essentially nothing was gained from the fire,” her attorney wrote.
Richards declined to comment on the case Friday. Calls to Halbur’s attorney and Assistant U.S. Attorney William Roach were not returned before deadline.
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