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TRENTON
- Attorney General Stuart Rabner and Division
of Criminal Justice Director Gregory A.
Paw announced that a Pennsylvania man pleaded
guilty Friday for his role in an auto theft
and insurance fraud ring.
According
to Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Greta Gooden
Brown, Artur Lapinski, 27, of Bethlehem,
Pa., pleaded guilty Friday to a second-degree
charge of conspiracy to receive and fence
stolen property before Superior Court Judge
Frederick P. DeVesa in Middlesex County.
The charge was part of an Oct. 25 indictment
returned by a Middlesex County grand jury.
Second-degree charges carry a sentence of
up to 10 years in state prison and a $150,000
fine.
To
date, the Office of Insurance Fraud Prosecutor
has identified roughly $803,000 worth of
stolen automobiles as a result of the wide-ranging
investigation in which Lapinski was indicted.
At
the guilty plea hearing on Friday, Lapinski
admitted that between Nov. 8 and Nov.10,
2004, Lapinski conspired with other persons
to possess and sell two stolen 2005 Hummer
H2 motor vehicles for $6,000 each. It is
alleged that the motor vehicles belonged
to James Hummer, an automobile dealership
in Flemington.
This
indictment is part of a wide-ranging investigation
into automobile thefts from dealerships
and automobile “give ups.” A
give up occurs when the owner of an automobile
voluntarily gives his car to another in
order to submit a phony auto theft insurance
claim. The car is typically chopped for
parts or retagged with a new vehicle identification
number and sold.
“This
investigation has identified a conspiracy
to steal cars and facilitate owner give
ups on a large scale,” Prosecutor
Brown said. “The property loss and
phony insurance claims uncovered in this
wide-ranging investigation may exceed $1
million. The investigation is continuing
and additional charges are expected.”
The
investigation is being handled by State
Investigators Jeffrey Lorman, Jarek Pyrzanowski,
Joseph Luccarelli, Wendy Wylie and Kelly
Howard, Civil Investigator Gary Miller,
Analysts Paula Carter and Barbara Ziolkowski,
and Deputy Attorney General Jacqueline D.
Smith. Smith is prosecuting the case for
the Office of Insurance Fraud Prosecutor.
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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