It's amazing how brazen the perpetrators of automobile insurance fraud in Lawrence had become before an anti-fraud task force began putting an end to their expensive games. Stories abound of staged accidents, people rounded up off the sidewalks to get into crashed cars and claim phony injuries.
Where there's a buck to be made, anything goes.
But now, police working on the task force have found a case that is surprising even to them: Police believe they've found a person claiming to be the driver of one car and a passenger of another in the same accident.
That's quite a trick. And it goes to show just how confident those committing fraud were that they could pull off any scam they tried.
According to police, Ernies Baez was the driver of a Dodge Stratus that was traveling on Methuen Street when it was struck by a Dodge Caravan that ran a stop sign and struck the Stratus in the rear. The accident happened in August 2003.
Hanover Insurance Co. paid damage claims for both vehicles as well as several injury claims. The company referred the case to the Insurance Fraud Bureau of Massachusetts after suspecting fraud.
Baez is currently serving a prison sentence in New York for drug charges. Investigators here noticed that one of the aliases that a New York arrest report said Baez used was the same name as one of the passengers in the van involved in the accident. Investigators say they found that Baez had obtained a driver's license under the name Jairo Reyes. The pictures of Reyes and Baez on their driver's licenses were confirmed by a state police facial recognition analysis to be the same person, according to Lawrence police Chief John J. Romero.
"How do you expect not to get caught on something like that? It's just unbelievable," Romero told reporter Mark E. Vogler. "But these people thought they had a free ride, and they were in fact milking the system for millions of dollars at the expense of the residents of this city and the rest of the state."
Police have charged Baez with auto insurance fraud, conspiracy, attempt to commit a crime, larceny over $250 and possession of false motor vehicle documents. But Romero said it may be years before he is returned to Lawrence to face the charges.
Police also charged six other individuals in connection with the accident.
Given the poor track record of Massachusetts courts in so far handing out nothing but weak sentences for those convicted of auto insurance fraud, we don't expect much in this case.
If only Massachusetts judges were as bold in their sentencing as the perpetrators have been in committing their fraud.
