An insurance fraud scheme that involved people faking car accidents and billing their insurance carriers for phony rehab has led to 19 arrests in Jacksonville with police looking for another half-dozen people.
The arrests occurred after the State Attorney’s Office and Florida’s Division of Insurance Fraud shut down the Indian Rehabilitation Center Inc. at 3636 University Blvd. N.
The clinic owner, Valerie Marshall, 24, was arrested last week in Tampa.
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Marshall is accused of opening the clinic to help people involved in staged automobile accidents get treatment for their made-up injuries. But prosecutors view Marshall as a “straw owner” for other people who actually oversaw day-to-day operations.
Assistant State Attorney Joseph Licandro and Dwight Murphy of Florida’s Division of Insurance Fraud said they couldn’t say who was the mastermind of the scheme until after they arrested everyone involved in the case.
“What I can assure you is that there will be more arrests,” Murphy said, while adding that it’s also possible there are more people involved in the fraud that haven’t been identified yet.
Murphy said this type of fraud affects everyone, because it causes the policies of innocent people to go up.
Insurance companies tipped law enforcement off to the fraud, and false claims were filed with at least 11 different insurance companies.
Investigators said recruiters offered to pay people to stage car accidents, pretend they had injuries and then sign paperwork saying they received treatment at the Indian Rehabilitation Clinic. The clinic then billed the individual insurance carriers for personal injury protection coverage to collect the money for treatment that wasn’t needed and never really occurred.
Under Florida law, insurers must provide personal injury protection coverage of $10,000 for every person.
Between March and October 2012 at least 19 illegal claims were reported from the insurance carriers. Investigators found that the clinic had about 80 patients during this time and about $228,000 was paid to the clinic from the insurance providers.
Marshall faces up to 35 years in prison and is charged with schemes to defraud, false insurance claims over $100,000 and illegal operation of a health care clinic.
The other people arrested face charges ranging from committing a staged motor vehicle accident to false insurance claims and schemes to defraud. Each person could face up to 15 years in prison.
