Then his estranged wife found his laptop hidden in a garage toolbox - the same laptop, court records say, Crow had reported stolen in a 2002 car break-in.

After she told police, Crow, 36, was arrested yesterday for the second time in eight months.

Crow, due back in court Monday on charges he solicited prostitutes while on duty last summer and then tried to cover it up, now faces new charges including felony counts of insurance fraud, receiving stolen property and theft by deception, as well as lying to authorities.

He resigned as a Horsham police officer in August, as the prostitution allegations were coming to light. He was arraigned in Montgomery County on the new charges yesterday afternoon.

"They really give a glimpse into the character of Tom Crow and reinforce the image that his last arrest conveys," Assistant District Attorney Todd Stephens said of the fraud charges.

Court records say Crow filed a report with Horsham Township police in July 2002 that his Toshiba laptop, a Nikon camera and a Panasonic video camera had been stolen from his parked car at Horsham's Village Mall.

Days later, he got a check from State Farm for $2,008.34 to cover replacement costs.

Then came his prostitution arrest and resignation from the police department in 2007. Prosecutors allege that Crow had used an escort-service phone number he found online to set up sexual encounters while on duty.

With a divorce pending, Crow's estranged wife was cleaning up their former home in February in hopes of selling it. Court records say she turned up a laptop "hidden in a toolbox in her garage" and contacted the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office, which is prosecuting Crow for the earlier Internet-related solicitation case.

Police found that the Toshiba laptop's serial number differs by only one digit from the police records of Crow's stolen-laptop report in 2002 - and that the serial number on those reports is not a legitimate Toshiba number.

The two cameras are also part of the fraud case.

Crow's estranged wife also told police that she still had the cameras he had reported stolen, and that she didn't know about the 2002 theft report.

His attorney, Marc Steinberg, did not return a call for comment.