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TRENTON
- Attorney General Anne Milgram and Division
of Criminal Justice Director Gregory A.
Paw announced that an Essex County man has
been sentenced to three years in state prison
after pleading guilty to filing false insurance
health care claims as part of an automobile
insurance fraud scam.
According
to Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Greta Gooden
Brown, Thomas Merritt, 31, of East Orange,
was ordered by Superior Court Judge Nancy
Sivilli in Essex County to serve three years
in state prison and to pay restitution in
an amount yet to be determined. The sentence
was pursuant to Merritt’s March 2
guilty plea to health care claims fraud,
a charge contained in an Aug. 31, 2006 Essex
County grand jury indictment.
In
pleading guilty before Judge Sivilli, Merritt
admitted that between May 16, 2001 and April
19, 2002, he falsely claimed that he had
been injured in an automobile accident which
purportedly occurred on May 16, 2001 in
Newark. An investigation determined that
the accident did not occur and that Merritt
had not been injured.
Merritt
admitted that he sought medical attention
and subsequently had more than $21,000 in
fraudulent claims submitted on his behalf
from the East Orange Chiropractic Association
to Metropolitan Property and Casualty Insurance
Company. The claims were for diagnostic
and chiropractic treatments related to the
purported auto accident.
State Investigator Jarek Pyrzanowski and
Deputy Attorney General Richard W. Queen
were assigned to the investigation. Queen
represented the Office of Insurance Fraud
Prosecutor at the sentencing.
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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