Driver Sentenced to Prison in Fatal Car Crash, Insurance Scam

A driver accused of causing a freeway crash that killed one of his passengers has been sentenced to four years in prison for his role in an insurance scam involving staged accidents with big trucks, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Jorge Sanchez pleaded guilty in Los Angeles Superior Court to one count each of vehicular manslaughter and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, Deputy Dist. Atty. Max Huntsman said. Prosecutors dropped a murder charge originally filed against Sanchez in exchange for his April 7 admission of guilt to the lesser counts.

Sanchez received the toughest sentence so far of nearly a dozen defendants who have been convicted of charges stemming from the fraud case.

Prosecutors accused Sanchez of purposely swerving the car he was driving in front of a big truck on the Golden State Freeway near Sun Valley, causing the truck to overturn and land on the back of his car, Huntsman said. The case gained widespread attention following the June, 1992, crash, which killed Jose Luis Lopez Perez, 29, a passenger in Sanchez’s car.

The incident was one of a chain of similar staged wrecks involving big trucks. It attracted nationwide attention as evidence of an escalation in the relatively common phenomenon of staged crashes.

Another defendant in the case, Leonard Michel, an alleged driver in a different staged accident on the Golden State Freeway near Burbank, pleaded guilty to insurance fraud Tuesday and faces a maximum five years in prison when he is sentenced May 10.

A hearing to set a trial date has been scheduled May 10 for other defendants in the case, including Gary Miller, an Encino attorney and alleged mastermind of the ring, and Filemon Santiago, the accused “capper” who local authorities seized in Texas last month.

Cappers, people who stage auto wrecks, work directly with attorneys to set up accidents aimed at collecting thousands of dollars in insurance claims on behalf of passengers hired to ride inside cars that are used to stage accidents.

Authorities allege that Santiago, who is going through extradition procedures in Houston, organized accidents for Miller. Both men and two passengers in the fatal crash have each been charged with murder.