Already have an account? Identify
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Orleans last week charged 11 others in connection with a car-to-18-wheel drive collision scam and to collect insurance payments.
The indictment, issued through the U.S. District Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, Peter Strasser, considers alleged “staged” injuries with semi-trailers dating back to 2017.
The formal indictment alleges seven counts of postal fraud opposed to an individual because the budget used to pay them was sent through the U.S. Postal Service.
The most recent allegations are attached to Damian Labeaud’s guilty plea earlier this month on a charge of conspiracy to commit electronic fraud. Media policy in New Orleans at the time of Labeaud’s guilty plea made several references to the possibility of him agreeing to plead guilty at a bachelor rate because he was cooperating with prosecutors to identify others involved.
Labeaud’s guilty plea follows previous accusations that coincided with six other people related to the plan.
Friday’s most recent indictment results in an intriguing reading explaining how the plan would have worked. He referred to Americans classified as “slammers”, described in the indictment as “an individual driving a vehicle and deliberately collided with 18-wheel semi-trailers to arrange a twist of fate” and “observers,” described as “an individual who to a slammer in a separate vehicle and pick up the slammer after the arranged turn of fate to flee the scene and escape detection.”
Louisiana’s highest truck insurance rates have recently led the state to implement several liability reform measures backed by the Louisiana Motor Truck Association.
The prosecution also states that the transaction was conducted through five lawyers who are not known by name, but are believed to be non-public injury lawyers in the state, distributed in two separate law firms. Lawyers are known only as A, B, C, D and E.
New Orleans television station WWL reported that New Orleans lawyer Daniel Patrick Keating is probably one of the lawyers who had been in normal contact with Lebeaud at the time of the accidents, based on cell phone records and civil lawsuit documents. The television station reported that Keating had rejected several requests for comment.
Lebeaud is known by call in the last formal indictment, but is charged after pleading guilty. But the summary of what the defendants are accused of explains how he worked with some of them in what the prosecution says is “a ploy and an artifice to defraud.”
According to the formal indictment, Labeaud and defendant Roderick Hickman would get $1,000 for the passenger for semi-trailer injuries and $500 from the passenger for non-trailer injuries.
The prosecution says the couple filed 20 cases with the lawyers. But that’s just a small component of what the prosecution says were a hundred injuries that the couple starred in.
Lawyers Labeaud and Hickguy would speak in terms of fishing, according to the indictment. The indictment provides some examples of text messages between Labeaud and one of the lawyers: “How are you today, friend? I got two really good things for you, kid, I’ll see you for about an hour, okay?” According to the indictment, this exchange took a stand shortly after one of the injuries was staged.
The lawyers “ordered Labeaud to replace the scene of the accidents, determine the number of passengers, talk to the police and cameras,” the indictment says.
The rest of the prosecution is full of stories that will surely let the truck’s driving forces shake their heads with disbelief. Labeaud allegedly saw a Freightliner park on a road and deliberately crashed. He did the same with a 2017 Peterbilt. In both cases, there were passengers in the car who, according to the indictment, were part of the scheme. They reportedly replaced the seats in the car after the turn of fate, so others gave the impression of being the driving force in all cases, while Labeaud moved away from the scene.
According to a report issued through the U.S. Attorney’s Office, attorneys “in some cases Array … they knew the participants were not injured, but referred them to medical providers for repair and increased the price of upcoming prosecutions.”
As a result, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said, insurers and trucks paid $277,500 for those “fraudulent claims.”
More items through John Kingston
Uber and Lyft have months to comply with driving force classification decision
The Court of Appeals agreed that Amazon may simply force Flex drivers into arbitration
Update: FMCSA asks questions about reporting requirements