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TRENTON
- Attorney General Stuart Rabner and Criminal
Justice Director Gregory A. Paw announced
that a police officer from Union County
was sentenced today for filing false police
reports as part of an insurance fraud scheme
involving an auto body shop in Roselle.
According
to Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Greta Gooden
Brown, Samad Abdel, 42, of Roselle, was
sentenced to one year of probation by Superior
Court Judge James C. Heimlich in Union County
and was ordered to pay a $5,000 civil insurance
fraud fine. The judge further ordered Abdel
to forfeit his employment as a detective
with the Plainfield Police Department and
to be permanently barred from any future
law enforcement position or public employment.
The sentence follows Abdel’s Dec.
12 guilty plea to two counts of official
misconduct.
At
the guilty plea hearing, Abdel admitted
that he wrote two false police reports regarding
automobile accidents that he knew were staged
or fictitious so that fraudulent insurance
claims could be submitted.
The
indictment to which Abdel pleaded guilty
charged that he and eight co-defendants
reported a total of seven staged or fictitious
car accidents between March 2001 and March
2003 and filed more than $117,800 in fraudulent
automobile insurance property damage claims
based on those phony accidents. The defendants
allegedly provided false information for
police accident reports to Abdel and John
A. Smith, a police officer with the Borough
of Roselle, which were used to substantiate
the auto accident insurance claims. Smith
pleaded guilty earlier this year to official
misconduct and is awaiting sentencing.
Claims
were filed with Progressive Insurance Company,
Great American Insurance Company, Clarendon
National Insurance Company, State Farm Insurance
Company and Liberty Mutual Insurance Company.
Approximately $94,200 was paid by the insurance
companies.
State Investigators Thomas Harrington and
Lisa Egan, Civil Investigators Raymond Britton,
Arthur Williams and Joseph Burro, Administrative
Analyst Christine Runkle and Deputy Attorney
General Joseph J. Egan Jr. handled the case.
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