FLORIDA

Brian, Brad and Dean Shecht-man, cousins who allegedly swindled more than 1,200 elderly victims out of millions of dollars in a bait-and-switch insurance scheme are in the limelight again as details surface about a plea-bargain in which they received light sentences.

The trio began serving their time in August.

The Bonita News cited a memo in which a prosecutor asked insurance investigators to endorse a plea bargain. It calls for Brian, the mastermind behind the scheme to spend 2-1/2 years in prison and Brad and Dean to spend a year in Lee County jail.

Under state sentencing guidelines all three cousins would spend a minimum of eight years in prison with a maximum of more than 30 years on racketeering and insurance fraud charges, to which they pleaded guilty.

Florida’s Office of Statewide Prosecution received the case in August 2001 after state insurance investigators spent two years examining the accusations. Prosecutors, who answer to Attorney General Charlie Crist, made an arrest three years later.

Crist’s office provided a memo in response to an article in the Naples Daily News in which Tom Gallagher, Florida CFO, and Crist’s political rival for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, said the cases were mishandled and that some elderly victims died before they could testify.

Gallagher said prosecutors should have gotten the case going a lot earlier and that the trio should have received tougher sentences.

Warrant Out for Lakeland Motel Owner

Workers’ compensation fraud is one of a handful of charges being leveled by the Florida State Attorney’s Office against Amir H. Khimani, owner of the Crossroads Motor Lodge in Lakeland, Fla.

Killings, arson and price-gouging charges had been filed against the hotel owner before it was discovered the motel owes more than $100,000 in back taxes, and according to the State Attorney’s Office, ignored orders in April to stop operating.

Khimani received a DFS “Stop Work Order” April 1 after a detective found Sidney DeHate repairing the motel’s roof while the motel had no workers’ compensation information on file for him. DeHate told an investigator he’d been repairing the roof in exchange for a free room and $10 a day.

Khimani was ordered to stop operating the motel until the department lifted the order. But DeHate was working on the roof four days later and again April 11.

Investigators also found several other motel boarders like DeHate working around the motel in exchange for room and board, the report said.

When investigators confronted Khimani, he told them he was not the motel’s owner and that it was operated by a company in Canada.

The Lakeland Ledger quoted a State Attorney’s Office report indicating that two arrest warrants have been issued for Khimani, the motel’s president and manager, for two counts of willful intent to evade paying tax and one count of using tax money declared as state funds.

GEORGIA

Investigators Smelled Scam

State of Georgia and Atlanta investigators closed down an insurance scam in which 10 workers at the James Walker Sewer Construction and Maintenance Facility filed disability claims for non-existent injuries. Investigators charged the city employees with felony insurance fraud. Three employees were arrested during a late-morning raid at the facility near Grant Park, where all 10 worked.

Janet Ward, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Watershed Management, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution two of those charged were supervisors and the rest were members of sewer maintenance crews working out of the facility.

State Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine said the nine men and one woman all filed claims against supplemental disability policies issued by Columbus-based Aflac, while still reporting for their city jobs.

More than $40,000 was paid to seven of the employees before Aflac started getting suspicious and denied some of those payments.

MISSISSIPPI

Three Residents Charged With Making False Hurricane Katrina Claims

Three Mississippi residents have been accused of making false claims to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for Hur-ricane Katrina relief funds.

Dunn Lampton, U.S. Attorney for the southern district of Mississippi, told the Meridian Daily News that Bryan Michael Beets of Vicksburg; and Markqus Antonio Brown and Henry Jerome Armstrong of Meridian; were arrested.

Federal authorities said each man falsely claimed they lived in a dwelling that was damaged by Katrina. If convicted, they face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

“Disasters such as this bring out the best and the worst in people,” Lampton said. “It is reprehensible to know that people who had no damage from Hurricane Katrina would engage in obvious illegal activity to fraudulently obtain hurricane relief money. Sadly, the people committing these crimes are taking money away from the real victims of the hurricane.”

Lampton said two other people who allegedly made false claims have not been apprehended or charged.

WEST VIRGINIA

False Workers’ Comp Statement a Felony

West Virginia Insurance Commissioner, Jane L. Cline, announced Richard Custer Jr. was sentenced Oct. 12 on one felony charge of making a false statement to the Workers’ Compensation Commission.

Custer, of Marshall County, attested on an application for coverage filed with the Workers’ Compensation Commission that he first had employees working in West Virginia in July of 2000; however, an employee’s report of a work-related injury in February of 2000 prompted an investigation.

“Evidence indicated that Custer had employees in his contracting business since August of 1999 without subscribing to the Workers’ Compensation Commission,” Cline said. “West Virginia employers who fail to subscribe, or who fail to make timely and accurate reports and payments to the Workers’ Compensation Commission are subject to criminal prosecution.”

Custer was sentenced to one to three years confinement in a state prison; however, the sentence was suspended and Custer was placed on two years supervised probation.

Businesses regularly employing persons in West Virginia are required to subscribe to and pay premiums to the West Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission for protection of their employees.

Workers’ compensation provides medical, disability, and rehabilitation benefits to workers who suffer injury or disease in the course of and resulting from their covered employment.

Topics Florida Fraud Workers' Compensation Virginia Hurricane West Virginia