Making Strides to Keep Kids Safe in Car Crashes

/PRNewswire/ -- The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) this week announced its latest round of booster seat evaluations. State Farm, a long time supporter of IIHS, applauds these new findings and, like IIHS, encourages greater consistency in the way booster seats function across most vehicle makes and models.

Motor vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of accidental death of children over age one, yet most of these tragedies could be prevented through proper safety restraint use. Belt-positioning booster seats are used to properly position shoulder and lap belts to provide restraint in a car crash. A good booster seat directs the lap belt across the child's upper thighs, and the shoulder belt at midshoulder. IIHS provides examples of good belt fit and their booster seat evaluation results at www..iihs.org/news/rss/pr090810.html.

Research shows that up to 70 percent of child restraint systems are installed or used incorrectly. That's why, since 2001, State Farm has hosted more than 2000 car seat check-ups and inspected more than 73,000 car seats. "This is one way State Farm demonstrates its commitment to helping make our roadways safe for everyone," said Laurette Stiles, Vice President of Strategic Resources at State Farm. "We want to help parents with the important yet often complex task of protecting their children in the car."

More information about child passenger safety can be found at the Learning Center at www.statefarm.com. Find a car seat inspection site at www.nhtsa.gov/cps/cpsfitting/index.cfm.

-----
Community News You Can Use
www.fayettefrontpage.com
Fayette Front Page
www.georgiafrontpage.com
Georgia Front Page
Follow us on Twitter:  @GAFrontPage

Former Polk County Deputy Sheriff Enters Guilty Plea

KENNETH LANE GRAVETT, 42, of Cedartown, Georgia, a former Deputy with the Polk County Sheriff’s Department, pleaded guilty today in federal district court to mail fraud relating to the submitting of a false insurance claim on a motorcycle.

According to Acting United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates, the charges and other information presented in court: In 2008, GRAVETT was a Deputy with the Polk County Sheriff’s Department. GRAVETT fell behind on making monthly loan payments on his Harley Davidson motorcycle. He then conspired with another individual to make it appear that the motorcycle was stolen, so that he could file a fraudulent insurance claim on the alleged theft of the motorcycle and use the insurance proceeds to pay off the delinquent loan.

In early December 2008, the other individual by arrangement with GRAVETT took the motorcycle from GRAVETT’s garage. On December 3, 2008, GRAVETT falsely reported to his own Polk County Sheriff’s Office that his motorcycle was stolen from his garage. On December 4, 2008, the other individual sold GRAVETT’s motorcycle to an FBI informant for $1500. On December 6, 2008, GRAVETT orally reported to his insurance carrier that his motorcycle had been stolen. On February 9, 2009, GRAVETT using the false police report filed a fraudulent insurance claim with his insurer seeking to recover the value of the motorcycle.

GRAVETT pleaded guilty to a Criminal Information charging one count of mail fraud. Based upon his guilty plea, he will not be able to obtain employment as a law enforcement officer. He could receive a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. In determining the actual sentence, the Court will consider the United States Sentencing Guidelines, which are not binding but provide appropriate sentencing ranges for most offenders.

Sentencing is scheduled for January 21, 2010, at 10 a.m., before United States District Judge Robert L. Vining, Jr.

This case is being investigated by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, with assistance from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.

-----
www.fayettefrontpage.com
Fayette Front Page
www.georgiafrontpage.com
Georgia Front Page

Oxendine Busts Auto Insurance Fraud Ring in Savannah

Insurance Commissioner John W. Oxendine said a fraud ring operating in Savannah, Ga., collected nearly $95,000 from six insurance companies by staging accidents and filing bogus claims.

The alleged ringleader, Joseph T. Morris Jr., 29, was arrested today and charged with three counts of insurance fraud and two counts of making false statements. According to an investigation by Oxendine’s office, 16 claims filed by Morris involved vehicles he owned or previously owned and people he was already associated with. Title histories show Morris sold vehicles to other parties who were then involved in “accidents” that he filed claims on.

The companies that were defrauded include AIG/ 21st Century, Allstate, GMAC, Mercury Insurance, SafeCo and Traveler’s.

"Fraud like this causes everyone’s premiums to go up," Oxendine said. "Thanks to my investigators, we have taken these people off the streets."

Morris was already on federal probation.

Insurance fraud is a felony with a penalty of two to 10 years in prison and/or a fine of up to $10,000.

-----
www.fayettefrontpage.com
Fayette Front Page
www.georgiafrontpage.com
Georgia Front Page
www.artsacrossgeorgia.com
Arts Across Georgia

Atlanta Chiropractors Indicted for Health Care Fraud

ANDREW L. SOKOL, 41, and JULIE B. WEISBERG, 35, both of Marietta, Georgia, were arraigned October 9, 2009, on felony charges of fraudulently submitting millions of dollars of insurance claims to Blue Cross Blue Shield and other private insurers for physical therapy services that were not actually provided.

Acting United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said, “These defendants allegedly billed Blue Cross Blue Shield and other private insurers over $11 million for physical therapy services they did not provide, when in fact they were providing massages, personal training, and chiropractic adjustments to their patients. Health care fraud ultimately affects everyone, in higher premiums and higher service costs, and we will vigorously prosecute those who abuse the system.”

Atlanta FBI Special Agent in Charge Gregory Jones said of the case, “Health care providers who abuse their positions by filing fraudulent insurance claims for personal financial gain are a very real problem to the health care industry itself. Loss amounts in these criminal fraud cases often demonstrate a level of greed that is hard to comprehend. The FBI will continue to work with its law enforcement partners as well as industry experts in combating health care fraud.”

“IRS Criminal Investigation continues to be actively involved in deterring Health Care Fraud, in conjunction with the Law Enforcement,” said Reginael D. McDaniel, Special Agent in Charge. “CI's role is to follow the money trail from the initial criminal act to the perpetrator who received the financial benefit.”

According to Acting United States Attorney Yates, the charges and other information presented in court, SOKOL is a licensed chiropractor who owned and operated “WellnessOne” chiropractic clinics in Marietta, Buckhead, Duluth, Vinings, and other locations in metro Atlanta. WEISBERG is also a licensed chiropractor, married to SOKOL, and was a partner in WellnessOne of Marietta, the most profitable of the clinics.

WellnessOne allegedly offered massage, personal training, and chiropractic services to its patients, but the indictment alleges these services were fraudulently billed to insurance companies as physical therapy. SOKOL and WEISBERG allegedly targeted MBNA and Bank of America employees because the Blue Cross Blue Shield policies covering those employees provided generous chiropractic and physical therapy insurance benefits. To attract these “patients” to WellnessOne clinics, SOKOL and WEISBERG designed and implemented frequent promotions, giving bank employees who came in for a massage or chiropractic adjustment gifts cards in the amount of $50, $25, or $10, and restaurant and free gasoline cards; raffle tickets offering the chance to win BMW and Hummer leases or $5,000; frozen turkeys and pies at Thanksgiving and Christmas; gift bags containing supplements, vitamins, lumbar and cervical pillows, and weight loss patches; and free catered lunches in the clinics. SOKOL and WEISBERG also waived these patients’ co-payments and deductibles, resulting in the patients being compensated – with gift cards and other items of value – while paying nothing for the massages and chiropractic adjustments they received at WellnessOne.

From January 2005 through September 2007, SOKOL and WEISBERG allegedly employed licensed medical doctors and physical therapists in order to bill massage as physical therapy, even though these licensed providers never saw the majority of patients and massage therapists were actually giving the massages. Several medical providers quit when they realized WellnessOne was billing insurers under their names for services they did not perform. In addition to using false provider names and billing codes, SOKOL allegedly directed that services be billed on different days and under different tax identification numbers to conceal the fraud from insurers.

Beginning in 2006, SOKOL and WEISBERG allegedly permitted patients to visit a local gym in the Atlanta area and then fraudulently billed those gym visits to insurers as physical therapy. When that arrangement ended, SOKOL allegedly had small gyms built in the WellnessOne clinics and fraudulently billed personal training sessions to insurers as physical therapy.

The indictment also alleges SOKOL and WEISBERG set quotas for employees and pressured the medical doctors on staff to order unnecessary tests and procedures, so that insurers could be billed more. SOKOL and WEISBERG allegedly had receptionists ask patients to sit in “wobble chairs” and lay on “hydro beds” for a few minutes before their massages and chiropractic adjustments, so that insurers could also be billed for these “therapies,” and had them automatically fit patients for two sets of shoe orthotics that were billed to insurers. The indictment alleges that as a result of the conspiracy and scheme to defraud, the defendants caused the submission of over $11 million in fraudulent insurance claims for physical therapy procedures to Blue Cross Blue Shield and other private insurers.

SOKOL and WEISBERG were indicted by a federal grand jury on October 6, 2009. The indictment charges SOKOL with one count of conspiracy, 53 counts of health care fraud, 3 counts of mail fraud, and 5 counts of money laundering. The indictment charges WEISBERG with one count of conspiracy, 24 counts of health care fraud, and 3 counts of mail fraud. The indictment also includes a forfeiture provision.

The conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, the health care fraud counts each carry a maximum of 10 years in prison, the mail fraud counts each carry a maximum of 20 years in prison, and the money laundering counts each carry a maximum of 10 years in prison. Each conspiracy, health care fraud, and mail fraud count carries a maximum fine of up to $250,000. Each money laundering count carries a maximum fine of up to $250,000 or, in the alternative, a fine of up to twice the amount of criminally derived property involved in the transaction. A forfeiture provision in the indictment seeks any and all ill-gotten gains from the alleged scheme, including a personal property at 3306 Hadleigh Court, in Marietta, Georgia.

Members of the public are reminded that the indictment only contains charges. The defendants are presumed innocent of the charges and it will be the government’s burden to prove the defendants’ guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.

-----
www.fayettefrontpage.com
Fayette Front Page
www.georgiafrontpage.com
Georgia Front Page

Former Ft. Stewart Soldier Receives 70 Months Imprisonment for Faking Wife's Death and Collecting Insurance Proceeds

Edmund A. Booth, Jr., United States Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, announced that Ingerberth Baird, age 38, was sentenced on October 14, 2008, in U.S. District Court in Savannah to 70 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge B. Avant Edenfield.

Booth commented that, in imposing sentence, Judge Edenfield made an upward variance from the advisory guidelines range of 44 to 51 months, finding that Baird committed perjury when he testified on his own behalf at trial and noting that Baird remained totally unrepentant of his criminal actions. Baird had been convicted by a jury on January 29, 2008, on one count of conspiracy, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371, one count of making false claims against the United States, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 287, and one count of mail fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1341.

Baird had been extradited from Trinidad to face the charges in this case in June 2007. Booth noted that Baird will be transferred to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation to his home country of Trinidad after he completes serving his sentence.

The convictions rested upon the evidence at trial which established the following :Ingerberth Baird and his wife, Nicolette, lived in Hinesville, Georgia, in 2002. Ingerberth Baird was an enlisted officer in the U.S. Army, posted at Ft. Stewart. Nicolette Baird was an elementary school teacher at Joseph Martin Elementary School in Hinesville. In September 2002, Nicolette Baird requested time off to travel to Trinidad, where she had been born, to attend a family funeral. Several days later, a person identifying himself as Nicolette's husband called the principal of Joseph Martin Elementary to report that Nicolette had died in an automobile accident in Trinidad. Ingerberth Baird sought leave from his duties with the United States Army and traveled to Trinidad shortly after Nicolette's reported death, spending eleven days there before returning to the United States. The evidence further showed that in October and November, 2002, Ingerberth Baird applied for benefits under life insurance policies covering Nicolette through the U.S. Army (under the Family Servicemembers Group Life Insurance program, or "FSGLI") and the Liberty County, Georgia school system.

In connection with those claims, he presented a handwritten death certificate and handwritten police report purportedly describing Nicolette's death in Trinidad. Ingerberth Baird received over $100,000 from the U.S. Army FSGLI policy on Nicolette. The benefit was paid in the form of a checking account funded with the entire benefit amount, and a checkbook drawn on that account was mailed to Ingerberth Baird at his home. Over the course of October and November, 2002, Ingerberth Baird wrote numerous checks that totally depleted the account. In December 2002, Ingerberth Baird left the United States for Trinidad.

Shortly thereafter, it was determined that the death claim was false in that the handwritten death certificate was counterfeit and that no registrar of deaths with the name listed on the death certificate actually existed. In April 2003, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation located Ingerberth Baird and Nicolette Baird, alive, living together in Cunupia, Trinidad. At that time, Ingerberth Baird admitted to the FBI agents that he knew on his first trip to Trinidad in September 2002, right after his wife's reported death, that no accident had occurred and that his wife was alive.

Booth praised the efforts of Special Agents Joseph Swiatek and Freddie Watkins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The United States was represented by Assistant United States Attorneys R. Brian Tanner and Brian F. McEvoy.

-----
www.fayettefrontpage.com
Fayette Front Page
Community News You Can Use
Fayetteville, Peachtree City, Tyrone
www.georgiafrontpage.com
Georgia Front Page

Oxendine Revokes Life Company's License, Fines Insurer $214,000

Insurance Commissioner John W. Oxendine announced recently that he has
revoked the certificate of authority of Trans World Assurance to operate in Georgia, and
has fined the company $214,000. In addition, the Commissioner has ordered the
company to refund monies collected from active duty members of the United States
Armed Forces related to products it has sold in Georgia since September 2007.

“Due to multiple violations of the state insurance code, I feel I have no option but
to revoke Trans World’s license to operate in the state,” Oxendine said. “What makes
these violations particularly egregious is that they targeted our men and women in
uniform.”

The Commissioner held a hearing May 5 and 6 of this year to investigate
allegations that the company sold a life insurance policy containing an illegal component
to military personnel between September 2007 and March 2008. The product, called
“Flexible Dollar Builder,” includes a provision known as an accumulation fund.
The Commissioner found that provisions of the accumulation fund violated Georgia’s
Military Sales Practices Regulation and the Unfair Trade Practices Act.

The company further violated regulations by selling life policies to service
members already covered under Service Members Group Life Insurance (SGLI) without
making the required assessment to determine whether the service member needed
additional life insurance.

Although the company may not sell new policies in Georgia, it must continue to
service existing contracts which were sold before September, 2007. The company must
also honor the contracts issued subsequent to September 1, 2007, until it has made the
refunds required by the order.