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TRENTON
- Attorney General Paula T. Dow and Criminal
Justice Director Stephen J. Taylor announced
that a Middlesex County auto body shop owner
was sentenced today for defrauding numerous
insurance companies out of a total of nearly
$52,000.
According
to Acting Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Riza
Dagli, Divyakant Patel, 47, of Iselin, was
sentenced to five years probation and was
ordered to pay $51,946 in restitution and
to serve 100 hours of community service
by Superior Court Judge Mathias E. Rodriguez
in Middlesex County. The sentence was based
on Patel’s Dec. 16 guilty plea to
an accusation which charged him with third-degree
theft by deception. New Jersey law provides
that there is a presumption against any
sentence of incarceration for a person convicted
of a third-degree crime who has not previously
been convicted of an indictable offense.
In
pleading guilty, Patel, the owner of J&R
Body Masters, located in Perth Amboy, admitted
that between Nov.16, 2006 and May 20, 2010,
he fraudulently obtained a total of $51,946
from various insurance companies. Patel
created the false impression that invoices
for various automobile parts submitted with
bills for payment for repairs done by J&R
Body Masters were invoices from the actual
automobile parts vendors when, in fact,
the invoices were fraudulently created documents.
The insurance companies from which Patel
stole the monies were: Enterprise Rent-A-Car,
High Point Insurance, Liberty Mutual Insurance,
21st Century Insurance, New Jersey Manufacturers
Insurance, GEICO, Allstate Insurance, SIA
Insurance, Mercury Insurance, Progressive
Insurance, Palisades Insurance, Ameriprise/IDS
Property and Casualty, Met Life and Hanover
Insurance.
Detectives
Jarek Pyrzanowski and Amy Carson, Civil
Investigator Douglas Murray and Deputy Attorney
General Nicole D. Rizzolo were assigned
to the investigation. Rizzolo represented
the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor
at the sentencing hearing. Acting Insurance
Fraud Prosecutor Dagli thanked Enterprise
Rent-A-Car, Highpoint Insurance Company
and the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission
for their assistance in the investigation.
The investigation began when both Enterprise
Rent-A-Car and the New Jersey Motor Vehicle
Commission referred the matter to the Division
of Criminal Justice.
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