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TRENTON
- Attorney General Stuart Rabner and Criminal
Justice Director Gregory A. Paw announced
that a New York man was sentenced to state
prison today for his leadership role in
an auto theft and insurance fraud ring.
According
to Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Greta Gooden
Brown, Artur Czubek, 28, of Staten Island,
N.Y., was sentenced to four years in state
prison by Superior Court Judge Scott J.
Moynihan in Union County. Czubek also was
ordered to pay more than $178,000 in restitution
to insurance companies. The sentence is
pursuant to Czubek’s guilty plea to
a criminal accusation that charged him with
leading an auto theft trafficking network,
a second-degree offense. The ring had a
base of operations in Linden, where stolen
cars were sold.
At
the Oct. 4, 2006 guilty plea hearing before
Judge Moynihan, Czubek admitted that between
Nov. 22, 2004 and Oct. 22, 2005, he was
involved in a conspiracy to steal cars and
accept owner initiated “give up”
vehicles so that more than a dozen fraudulent
insurance claims could be submitted. A “give
up” occurs when the owner of a car
voluntarily gives it to another so that
a false theft claim can be submitted and
the car can be chopped for parts or retagged
with a new vehicle identification number
and sold.
Czubek
was involved with 13 car thefts or give-ups
and the resale of those cars. Nine of the
cars were stolen, including some from automobile
dealerships. They were sold to undercover
investigators for a total of $26,000, but
had an actual combined value of more then
$562,000. The remaining four cars were owner
give-ups. The undercover investigation determined
that Czubek received $4,300 for those vehicles,
which were valued at a total of $133,000.
“This sentence resulted from an ongoing
multi-state investigation into the activities
of a gang of car thieves,” said Insurance
Fraud Prosecutor Greta Gooden Brown. “We
are coordinating our efforts in New Jersey
with those of law enforcement agencies in
New York and Pennsylvania for maximum results.”
The
case has been handled by State Investigators
Jeffrey Lorman, Jarek Pyrzanowski, Joseph
Luccarelli, and Kelly Howard, Civil Investigator
Gary Miller and Deputy Attorney General
Jacqueline D. Smith, with assistance from
State Investigators Luis Cruz and Wendy
Wylie, former State Investigator Karen Rivera
and Donald Cavallo of the National Insurance
Crimes Bureau. American Road, Geico and
Auto One insurance companies also assisted.
Prosecutor Brown noted that some important
cases have started with anonymous tips.
People who are concerned about insurance
cheating and have information about a fraud
can report it anonymously by calling the
toll-free hotline 1-877-55-FRAUD
or visiting the Web at www.NJInsuranceFraud.org.
State regulations permit an award to be
paid to an eligible person who provides
information that leads to an arrest, prosecution
and conviction for insurance fraud.
The
Office of Insurance Fraud Prosecutor was
established by the Automobile Insurance
Cost Reduction Act of 1998. The office is
the centralized state agency that investigates
and prosecutes both civil and criminal insurance
fraud, as well as Medicaid fraud.
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