Five more defendants accused of conspiring to stage big-rig truck accidents in a wide-ranging insurance fraud scheme have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Orleans reported.
Those who pleaded guilty late last month were Gibson residents Lois Russell, 61; Tanya Givens, 43; and Henry Randle, 64. The two other defendants were identified as John Diggs, 60, of Thibodaux and Dakota Diggs, 25, of Fort Smith, Ark.
All five were passengers in cars that intentionally collided with 18-wheelers in the New Orleans area in the spring of 2017, according to the guilty pleas made public on May 25. In one of the staged accidents, the target trucking company and its insurers paid out $272,500 in fraudulent accident claims. A second incident involving Randle and Dakota Diggs resulted in a trucking firm and its insurers paying $10,000 in fraudulent claims.
Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of Louisiana CEO Jeff Albright
The five guilty pleas were accepted as part of a federal investigation that so far has led to more than 30 indictments, including the filing of fraud charges against an attorney, Danny Patrick Keating, 51, of New Orleans.
Jeff Albright, the CEO of the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of Louisiana, said such prosecutions can help to serve as a deterrent to the filing of future insurance fraud claims in the state.
“Fraud increases claim costs and therefore premiums in every state,” Albright told the Louisiana Record. “The more Louisiana law enforcement can apprehend, incarcerate and discourage fraud, the lower the fraud claim costs will be and the more premium relief policyholders will receive.”
But he added that other tactics would be needed to deal with a separate issue, the plaintiff-friendly legal climate in Louisiana.
“Louisiana drivers claim to be injured in car accidents twice as often as the national average even though our accident frequency is only slightly higher than the national average,” Albright said. “To improve our legal climate and reduce claim costs and insurance premiums, we will need to reform our laws, our judicial system and the attitudes of Louisiana drivers.”
In the announced guilty pleas, Russell, Givens and the elder Diggs acknowledged conspiring with another passenger on March, 27, 2017, to stage an accident with a big-rig. Another defendant acted as the “slammer,” or driver who intentionally collides with an 18-wheeler in a scheme to file phony accident claims, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Each of the five who pleaded guilty may have to serve up to five years in prison prior to a supervised release period of three years. They also face possible fines of $250,000.