By ERIC STERN
BEE CAPITOL BUREAU

Last Updated: January 5, 2004, 05:50:36 AM PST

SACRAMENTO -- Though well-intentioned, Assemblyman Dave Cogdill relied on false rumors and inside information about the Laci Peterson case to push changes in insurance laws at his wife's urging.
It started last January, when Cogdill, a Republican from Modesto, and his wife, Stephanie, heard a news update about Peterson.

The pregnant Modesto woman had disappeared a few weeks earlier, around Christmas Eve. The story was making the rounds in the national media, and the whodunit talk centered on her husband, Scott.

The Cogdills heard on the radio that Scott Peterson was having an affair and had taken out a $250,000 life insurance policy on his wife after she got pregnant.

His wife asked if it were possible to insure someone without that person knowing it.

"I think there ought to be a law against that kind of thing," she told her husband.

Cogdill agreed to look into it. And when he returned to the Capitol the following Monday, his staff began researching the issue.

On Feb. 20, Cogdill introduced a bill to require companies to notify people when life insurance policies are taken out on them.

The legislation cleared committee hearings and floor debate in the Assembly and Senate without much discussion. No one voted against it. Gov. Davis signed the bill on July 26.
* Continue at link:
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/7968227p-8841034c.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: I recall the posts in this forum discussing the $250,000 insurance policy from false reports....like I stated several times, "...scratch mine, I'll scratch yours..." politics, that's what it's been so much about !
LadyBug