TRENTON
- Attorney General Stuart Rabner and Division
of Criminal Justice Director Gregory A.
Paw announced that a former Hudson County
Auto Body shop owner was sentenced today
for attempting to steal more than $9,000
by filing fraudulent insurance claims.
According
to Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Greta Gooden
Brown, Louis Rivadeneira, 69, of West New
York, was sentenced to one year probation
and was ordered to pay $9,800 in restitution
by Superior Court Judge Fred J. Theemling
Jr. in Hudson County. The sentence follows
Rivadeneira’s Oct. 19 guilty plea
to third-degree attempted theft by deception.
In
pleading guilty, Rivadeneira, the former
owner and operator of Louis & Sons Auto
Body on Kennedy Boulevard in West New York,
also known as Louis’ Boulevard Auto
Body, admitted that between May 2000 and
August 2003, he inflated auto body repair
claims he submitted to Allstate Insurance
Company and United Services Automobile Association.
An investigation by the Office of Insurance
Fraud Prosecutor determined that Rivadeneira
caused additional damage to cars he received
for repairs so he could inflate the insurance
claims. He also billed USAA for replacement
parts in instances when he repaired the
original parts and never purchased new ones.
State Investigator Jose Vendas and Deputy
Attorney General Nicole D. Rizzolo handled
the case.
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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