Locker bought life insurance before death

Woodmere motivational speaker Jeffrey Locker bought $12 million in life insurance in the eight months before his death, but none of the four policies have paid off, according to testimony Tuesday at the Locker suicide-by-hire trial in Manhattan.

Kenneth Minor, 38, of East Harlem, is charged with second-degree murder in the July 2009 stabbing death of Locker, 52. Minor says Locker, deeply in debt, hired him to help Locker kill himself and make it look like a robbery so Locker's family could collect on insurance.

Witnesses from four insurance companies - Prudential, Metropolitan Life, Lincoln Financial and Principal Financial Group - said they had the right to contest a claim for a death within two years of the issuance of a policy, and to refuse to pay for a suicide within the two-year period.

In Locker's case, they said, the claims had not been paid because of misstatements by Locker in his policy applications, issues about whether he committed suicide, or failure by his family to cooperate in investigation of the claims.

Four other policies that were 5 years old or more paid out $6 million, witnesses said. Beneficiaries on those policies had been changed in 2009 to the Jeffrey Locker Irrevocable Trust, or the Jeffrey Locker Family Trust.

And a $150,000 policy purchased from Garden State Life in November 2008 paid out because, a witness said, the company decided not to contest a finding on Locker's death certificate that said he was a victim of homicide. Locker's wife, Lois, was made the beneficiary on that policy on July 12, 2009 - four days before Locker died.

Also Tuesday, representatives of four credit-card companies testified that Locker had more than $66,000 in unpaid debt on maxed-out cards when he died - debts that, in at least some cases, the family had never paid.

In a March 2009 e-mail on his computer that was revealed by prosecutors last year, Locker told his wife he had structured his estate so she could let creditors "hang out to dry when I am gone."

A lawyer for Locker's family did not return a call for comment Tuesday. The trial resumes Thursday.