Every year, the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud honors patrons of moral turpitude—those low purveyors of depravity who decide to play insurance professionals for fools in a bid to get rich quick.
Because stories stay with us much longer than facts and figures, the CAIF highlights several new failed insurance fraud cases every year. These folks are chosen for their audacity, clumsiness and sheer stupidity as a lesson for would-be offenders.
The following nine cases are this year’s inductees in the No-Class of 2014.
9. Dr. Spyros Panos
This New York orthopedist rushed up to 20 surgeries a day, making more than $35 million in false claims for botched and fake procedures. One surgery lasted just seven minutes, and others involved nothing more than an incision and stiches without any repairs.
He now faces about 260 malpractice suits and will spend the next four-and-a-half years in jail.
8. Angela Garcia
A resident of Cleveland, Ohio, Angela Garcia allowed her two infant daughters to die in a house fire in order to collect just $64,000 worth of insurance money. Police records indicate Garcie tied one of her daughters with a cord from a window blind and then started a fire with a flammable liquid before escaping herself.
She also made claims on her homeowners insurance for possessions she did not have. She was convicted of insurance fraud and murder, and received life in prison.
7. Andy Lee House
A Bugatti Veyron is not something one simply throws away—yet that’s exactly what Andy Lee House did this year in order to collect $2.2 million off his insurer. After swerving into a swampy lagoon, House filed a claim with the insurance company, saying a low-flying pelican was to blame.
Yet a video car enthusiast that happened to be filming at the time House left the road shows no pelican in sight.
House pled guilty to charges and faces up to 20 years in federal prison when sentenced.
6. Joseph Haddad
This Bridgeport, Conn. personal injury attorney was caught running a crime ring that stole millions of insurance dollars by giving pointless treatment to crash victims.
Haddad ran a tight ship, working with a network of recruiters, doctors, chiropractors and diagnostic clinics.
Federal agents managed to catch him in the act, however, after posing as a crash victim.
Haddad was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison, and must repay $1.8 million.
5. Christopher Inserra
This former New York City cop was caught rocking out as the lead singer for a local punk rock band called Cousin Sleaze while also collecting more than $31,000 in workers’ compensation payouts.
Videos from a concert tour called “Miles of Mayhem” show Inserra “repeatedly moving his arms in a punching motion” and “violently flailing his arm in an up-and-down motion.”
Inserra is currently on three years of probation.
4. Sara Ylen Port
It’s hard to fake stage-four cancer, but Sara Ylen Port of Huron, Mich. managed to do it.
While collecting more than $120,000 in hospice care, $10,000 from a local church, and support from her community and an area newspaper, Port was enjoying a cancer-free life.
She claimed doctors had diagnosed her with the condition, but a probe of her computer found several search terms, images and URLs related to cancer research. Doctors also denied involvement in the scam.
Port pled no contest and received a year in jail for the stunt.
3. Dr. Farid Fata
A cancer specialist, Fata filed roughly $225 million in false Medicare claims, with half going for unnecessary chemo. Fata also deliberately misdiagnosed patients who were in remission or terminal.
And he didn’t just stick to Medicare fraud. This Detroit-area doctor billed private insurers as well for procedures including needless blood therapy and iron treatments and 155 chemo procedures for one cancer-free patient.
Fata faces up to 175 years in federal prison.
2. Suzanne Basso
All is not fair in love.
Houston resident Suzanne Basso targeted grocery bagger Buddy Musso, a man with the IQ of an eight-year-old who lived in an assisted-living home near upper Manhattan, promising him marriage in order to gain access to the insurance money.
Basso took out $150,000 worth of life insurance policies on Musso, including a $60,000 violent-death clause, and then tortured and killed him.
As if it wasn’t enough, Basso attempted to avoid trial by claiming paralysis, blindness and a mental condition that caused her to regress to childhood.
She was executed by lethal injection in February after a court-appointed psychiatrist found her to be faking all conditions.
1. Pamela Phillips
Once an Aspen, Colo. socialite, Phillips is now serving a life sentence without parole after car-bombing her ex-husband in order to collect $2 million in life insurance money.
Phillips lived with Gary Triano in Tucson, Ariz. where they were known to socialize with wealthy people such as Donald Trump.
After Triano went broker, however, Phillips paid an ex-boyfriend $400,000 to set up a car bomb which killed Triano.
Phillips moved to Aspen, but telephone calls recorded by the ex-boyfriend exposed her crime.
