BEVERLY — An elderly Prides Crossing couple were found dead inside their garage yesterday afternoon, a day after the husband was supposed to have begun serving a nine-year federal prison sentence for tax fraud and conspiracy.
Peter Peggs and his wife, Eileen Mary Ann Peggs, both 75, were discovered by friends who had arrived at the couple's home on Common Lane shortly after 12:30 p.m. said Carrie Kimball-Monahan, a spokeswoman for the Essex County district attorney's office.
The couple were found inside their car, in the closed garage. They were pronounced dead at the scene, Kimball-Monahan said.
Beverly and state police assigned to the district attorney's office are investigating the deaths, Kimball-Monahan said. They have not specified a cause of death, pending the outcome of an autopsy and toxicology tests, but no foul play by a third party is suspected at this point.
Earlier yesterday, a U.S. District Court judge in Michigan issued an arrest warrant for Peter Peggs, after he failed to turn himself in at the federal prison in Butner, N.C., as ordered.
Peggs was convicted last October of taking part in a scheme to sell sham "loss of income" insurance policies through a company set up in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which were pitched as tax shelters for wealthy taxpayers looking for deductions.
Prosecutors alleged, and a jury later found, that the scheme enabled clients to avoid paying more than $7 million in income taxes.
In May, Peggs was sentenced to nine years, a term his lawyer in the case called a "life sentence." An appeal was being prepared.
Peggs had been free on a $50,000 unsecured bond — essentially, his signature — as he awaited sentencing. The judge in the case agreed to allow him to voluntarily surrender, and he had agreed to report to the federal prison Thursday.
Court papers in the federal case say that Peggs' lawyer, Scott Graham, tried unsuccessfully to reach Peggs by phone Thursday but that the calls went to voice mail.
Graham, whose office is in Portage, Mich., did not return a call seeking comment yesterday.
In addition to the nine-year prison term, Peggs had been ordered to pay more than $1 million in restitution.
In a sentencing memorandum filed in May, Graham described Peggs' background, including a childhood in London, where he survived the Blitz during World War II.
He met his wife in grammar school when both were 12, and the couple married in 1955. They later moved to the United States.
The couple enjoyed traveling and socializing with friends, some of them said in letters submitted to the court prior to the sentencing.
Peggs had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, his lawyer said in the sentencing memorandum, and was undergoing treatment.
Ann Peggs, as she was known to friends, was suffering from dementia, and both her husband's lawyer and her one-time caretaker expressed concern about who would care for her and remind her to take her medications.
"There is no money to hire help, and Mr. Peggs is the only person in a position to provide care for Ann," Peggs' lawyer said in the sentencing memorandum. "Mr. and Mrs. Peggs have no money other than their Social Security benefits."
The couple had been unable to sell their home.
Barry Jordan of Salem, a longtime friend of the couple, said he and his wife, Alice, were "just very shocked, very surprised" to learn of the Peggses' deaths.
Peggs had withdrawn from many of his friends after the sentencing, communicating via e-mail during the past two months, Jordan said.
"I didn't think he'd go to this extreme," Jordan said.
The two couples, who had been friends for 35 years, had taken numerous trips together, and Jordan described Peggs as a "wonderful friend and a very caring person" in his letter to the court.
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