It Figures

$27.5 Million

The amount of a settlement reached between a Pennsylvania nuclear processing plant and neighbors who claim the radioactive particles from the nuclear factory gave them cancer and damaged their property. The case concerned Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp., which processed uranium and plutonium in Apollo borough and nearby Parks Township, about 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Most personal injury and wrongful death claims will get about $100,000. In January, the federal government approved a $150,000-per-person aid program for former workers at the facility who later developed cancer.

$19 Million

Amount awarded to a Freehold, New Jersey woman whose 10-year-old son was born with severe brain damage and cerebral palsy. A jury found the doctor who delivered the child failed to promptly deliver the baby by C-section, which contributed to the child’s injuries. The $19 million was the award reduced by the judge in the case, who took into account the jury’s finding that there was a chance the child would have suffered some harm anyway.

$10 Million

Amount allegedly laundered by two owners of a Danbury, Connecticut insurance agency. Renata Amaral and Monica Teixeira of RM Insurance Services allegedly oversaw a complicated scheme of wire transfers designed to send money back and forth to Brazil without it being detected by government officials there or in the U.S., federal agents charge. Court documents show the two were caught when an undercover IRS agent posed as a drug dealer who needed to send money to a Texas bank.

$6.2 Million

Amount fraudulently charged by an 11-person Manhattan medical mill, which allegedly staged fake car crashes and gave phony victims unnecessary treatments. Included in the group – charged last month in an 84-count indictment – are two acupuncturists and a chiropractor. The 5-year operation targeted more than a dozen car insurance companies. The fake patients were paid a couple of hundred dollars each for taking part in a phony accident, and runners would receive a couple of thousand, prosecutors said.