If there is one thing that characterizes popular American culture, it is con artists. From Charles Ponzi to Anna Sorokin, American history is full of tricksters. However, not all of them have gone to quite the same lengths as William Mize VI, the lead character in a story published this month in New York magazine and the mastermind of a criminal scheme involving his family that managed to swindle millions of dollars from insurance companies.
Between 2006 and 2017, Mize orchestrated over 30 falsified automobile accidents involving his wife, children, nephew and a supporting cast of accomplices interchanging the role of victims and culprits to later come to an arrangement with their insurers. Far from faking the injuries incurred in these accidents with the application of red paint on the bodywork, Mize would cut up his accomplices with a razor or a box cutter, spraying real blood on the vehicles to make the set-ups more credible. He even made them empty a bottle of their own urine over their clothes to make it look as though they had lost consciousness. In exchange, they pocketed $6 million between them.
The author of the New York magazine investigation, Lauren Smiley, describes Mize as an “artist” of dishing out injuries. Operating under several aliases including William Talento, Chad Harris and Phillip Gonzalez, Mize also believed that acting within the confines of the law was for the poor of spirit. Born in El Paso, Texas, in 1961, Mize grew up in the San Francisco…
