By Staff Reports
January 15, 2020
A socialite makes
nearly $20 million of false damage claims after fire wrecks her mansion. An
obsessed entrepreneur lodges $1.2 billion of bogus Medicare claims. A
slip-and-fall ring terrorizes businesses with $32 million of bogus trips and
slips.
The nine
most-brazen insurance fraudsters of 2019 were chosen by the Coalition Against
Insurance Fraud. The convicted extreme schemers were inducted into the
Insurance Fraud Hall of Shame.
The Shamers draw
wide public attention to insurance fraud — and its high costs to consumers and
insurers. Fraud is an $80-billion annual epidemic, one of America’s largest
financial crimes.
Here are this
year's shamers:
Fire fraud
flameout. Wealthy socialite Claire Risoldi rifled her insurer with
$20 million of swollen claims for ruined home possessions after her mansion
burned near Philadelphia. Risoldi even blamed brave firefighters for stealing
$10 million of jewelry that largely didn’t exist.
Slip ring falls. Street people
and other down-and-outers were recruited to pretend they tripped on the
sidewalks of New York City. It was a $32-million strafing of insurers by a
slip-and-fall ring. Ringleader Dr. Peter Kalkanis even forced some “victims” to
have painful spinal fusions and other surgeries to inflate injury claims.
Deadly home arson. A $500,000
home burning ended when the fire starter was scorched to death after lighting
gasoline inside the Scranton, Pa. home. Diomedes Ceballos hired his doomed
brother Aurelio to burn the home. Aurelio was engulfed in flames when he lit
the blaze. That fireball sent him to his death, and Diomedes to the Hall of
Shame.
Uncaring nursing
care. Phil Esformes launched one of the largest insurance crimes
in U.S. history, a $1.2-billion plundering of health insurers in South Florida.
Esformes recruited 14,000 addicts, mentally ill and street people for bogus
assisted living, nursing care, lab work and other thefts.
Disability scream
scheme. A mugger wearing a frightening mask of movie slasher
Michael Myers seemingly beat up Boston-area trolley driver Thomas Lucey at a
trolley stop. Lucy claimed PTSD and collected thousands of dollars in
disability. Except Lucey set up the fake mugging with a friend to steal
disability money.
Slip scam iced. Alexander
Goldinsky dropped ice on his employer’s cafeteria floor, pretended to fall, and
claimed he hurt his head. Security cameras recorded the entire bungled plot.
Goldinsky became a national news sensation for how not to try an insurance scam
when security cameras are watching.
Phone flimflam. Worthless
ortho braces highlighted Lester Stockett’s $424-million theft from Medicare as
a lead player in a suspected $2.1-billion transnational crime ring.
Telemarketers recruited seniors. Corrupt doctors gave them bogus phone exams
and ordered unneeded braces in a vast accused telemedicine plot.
Gator guile. Alligators
devoured Mike Williams in a lake near Tallahassee, Fla., worried officials
decided. Actually, Mike’s best friend Brian Winchester shotgunned him on a
duck-hunting trip, claimed Mike drowned, then buried his body. Winchester and
Mike’s wife Denise plotted his death to steal $1.75 million of life insurance
and run off together.
Sobriety scheme. A corrupt
rehab network forced desperate addicts to relapse in a $100-million plot to
milk insurers in Pennsylvania. Jason Gerner warehoused addicts in unsafe sober
homes. He forced many addicts to keep relapsing so he could making more false
rehab claims. Some sober homes even let addicts take drugs.
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