QUEENS (Daily News) -- When a Queens insurance broker was charged two years ago with killing two people to cash in on their insurance policies, federal prosecutors feared there were more dead bodies to be found.
Now, prosecutors have outlined two more slayings - and suggest there could be even more.
"There's so many bodies, it's hard to keep track," said a source familiar with the case.
The broker, Richard James, and an alleged accomplice, Ronald Mallay, already are facing the death penalty on charges of conspiring to kill two fellow Guyanese immigrants, Basdeo Somaipersaud and Hardeo Sewnanan.
In criminal complaints filed Tuesday, Brooklyn federal prosecutors say the slayings of Vernon Peters and Alfred Gobin also may be tied to the grisly scheme.
Peters was married to Betty Mallay, Ronald Mallay's sister. When Peters was shot dead outside the Woodside Houses in 1993, Betty Mallay cashed in on the life insurance policy.
The complaints do not state how much Betty Mallay pocketed, but the same source told the Daily News that the policy paid out about $200,000.
Betty Mallay's son, Baskanand Motilall, allegedly received proceeds on the life insurance policy of Gobin, who was shot dead in 1998 in Guyana, according to the complaint.
Gobin was the grandfather of Ronald Mallay's ex-girlfriend. Ronald Mallay allegedly received about $60,000 from Gobin's policy, the source said.
Neither policy was written by James.
The disclosure of the two other slayings came in a complaint against Betty Mallay and Motilall, who were charged with threatening witnesses.
Motilall's lawyer Robert Gottlieb declined to comment on whether his client benefited from Gobin's death.
"I will say he is not guilty of any intimidation of any witness at any time," Gottlieb said yesterday.
The deadly scheme began to unravel when MetLife noticed that 21 death claims had been filed from policies written by James within a few years. The rate "was approximately 318% higher than expected \[and\] . . . a large number of deaths were violent or under unusual circumstances," court papers had said