Man Pleads Guilty to One of New York’s Biggest No-Fault Insurance Frauds Ever

A New Jersey man has pleaded guilty to orchestrating an estimated $70 million fraud targeting no-fault automobile insurance companies in New York.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams reported that Bradley Pierre of Closter, N.J., pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). He is scheduled to be sentenced in May.

According to the indictment, the conspirators billed insurers for as much as $70 million in fraudulent medical claims. The indictment identified counts of health care fraud, money laundering, bribery, identity theft, and fraud against the IRS as part of a more than a decade long scheme that involved medical clinics, doctors, business associates and law firms, including one

run by his wife, Nonna Shikh.

Pierre took advantage of a feature of New York and New Jersey no-fault insurance laws that requires insurers to pay auto insurance claims automatically for certain types of motor vehicle accidents, provided that the claim is legitimate and below a particular monetary threshold.

Insurance companies will often pay medical service providers directly for the treatment they provide to automobile accident victims without the need to bill the victims themselves. According to court records, from about 2008 to 2021, Pierre agreed with others to unlawfully own and run medical clinics located in the New York area including, among others, Veda Medical, Sky Medical, Sun Medical and Rutland Medical. Between 2008 and 2021, he took more than $20 million from the clinics by either transferring the funds directly to bank accounts under his control or using the clinics’ bank accounts to pay his personal finances, prosecutors say.

He also used his control of the clinics to steer prescriptions to pharmacies in return for more than $1 million in kickbacks and to steer patients to seek representation from law firms with which he conspired.

Topics New York Fraud