Dozens Indicted in Staged Crash Case

Federal prosecutors Wednesday announced the indictments of 67 people, including two police officers and three other law enforcement employees, in an elaborate ring that staged automobile accidents in order to collect on medical insurance claims and lawsuits.

Ring leaders used code words, calling the staged crashes “movies,” the cars that were used “cans,” the people who claimed injuries “pineapples” and the clinics where they received treatment for phony injuries “fruit stands,” officials said.

Authorities called it the biggest auto accident fraud ring ever charged in New York City. Court papers said the alleged leader of the ring, Quentin “Flint” Hawkins, 52, boasted he scripted bogus auto accidents for 21 years.

“If the accidents were ‘movies’ . . . it would be no exaggeration to describe the role played by Quentin Hawkins to be that of producer, director, screenwriter, casting director and set designer,” said Barry W. Mawn, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York field office. “These were ‘movies’ that were guaranteed to make money.”

“Hawkins created the accidents,” Mawn charged. “Where there were actual collisions, he arranged for the cars, the drivers and the passengers. He recruited his family members, his friends, his associates and, in one instance, a former World Wrestling Federation wrestler who had been part of a tag team named, appropriately enough, ‘Demolition.’ ”

Among those arrested was Carmine Azzato, the wrestler, who prosecutors said drove one of the cars in a staged accident on Feb. 28, 1999.

Also charged in the fraud scheme was Theresa Okeh, a police officer with New York City’s Health and Hospitals Corp., who allegedly deliberately caused an accident by stopping short at a traffic signal.

According to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, one of the accidents required two takes.

In the crash on Nov. 1, 1999, Rodney Hawkins, a police officer, allowed his own vehicle to be used. But when the two cars collided, little damage occurred.

The two drivers got out, inspected the cars and decided to crash again. This time the results were satisfactory, and they notified the police, who filed an accident report.

Rodney Hawkins, 33, a seven-year veteran of the force, is believed to be no relation to the ring’s alleged leader, prosecutors said. He was arrested along with Edwin DeLoatch, 34, who joined the force 13 years ago. DeLoatch once was an instructor at the police academy.

Prosecutors charged that Rodney Hawkins received bribes for fabricating police reports, which he gave to the ring. Other times, he allegedly turned over to ring members reports filed by honest officers who were unaware accidents were scripted.

Prosecutors said that after the phony accidents, the “victims” went to medical clinics that paid Quentin Hawkins a fee for each patient.

Investigators said Hawkins and his lieutenants told the passengers to claim soft-tissue damage, which produces pain but no objective evidence. He told them to get therapy as often as possible, sometimes three or four times a week.

The clinics, prosecutors explained, would prescribe additional therapy, including large amounts of medical equipment, and would bill insurance companies up to the maximum of $50,000 allowed under New York State’s no-fault insurance law.

The high medical bills would give the supposed victims a better chance to obtain fraudulent personal injury settlements when they obtained lawyers. Some defendants, government lawyers said, were paid hundreds of dollars by Quentin Hawkins or his lieutenants. Others were promised an insurance settlement at a later time for “pain and suffering.”

Prosecutors charged the ring staged at least 14 accidents, resulting in more than $1 million in false insurance claims.

“The participation of several law enforcement officers in this criminal scheme is particularly reprehensible,’ said Alan Vinegrad, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn.