Top insurance fraud swindlers
Class of 2006
Carla Patterson. The Newport News, Va. woman said she found a dead mouse in her vegetable soup at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. She demanded $500,000 in insurance money, but Cracker Barrel discovered the rodent had no soup in its lungs, and hadn't been cooked. Customers harassed Cracker Barrel employees, and one worker lost her home when business declined. Patterson received a year in prison.
Dr. Jorge Martinez. Ohio pain management specialist Dr. Jorge Martinez threatened to deny desperate patients painkillers unless they let him use their names to bill insurance companies more than $60 million in narcotic drugs and expensive diagnostic tests he never gave. Some patients grew addicted, and two died of overdoses. Martinez also fraudulently billed insurers for more than 100 patients a day for years. He received life in federal prison.
Dr. David Wexler. Dermatologist Dr. David Wexler paid drug addicts to lend him their names so he could bill insurers thousands for skin surgeries he never performed. The New York City doctor made nearly 2,000 bogus claims for phantom surgeries on one addict, including 1,400 on his face. Wexler paid the addicts a virtual pharmacy of narcotics to keep them coming back. He received 20 years in federal prison.
Tramesha Lashon Fox. The Houston high school chemistry teacher wanted to unload her Chevy Malibu because she was tired of the monthly payments. She gave passing grades to two failing students for "stealing" and torching her car so she could collect insurance money. Fox received 90 days in jail and lost her job.
Dr. Young Moon. Cancer patients died prematurely when the Tennessee oncologist diluted cancer drugs she gave to patients, then billed healthcare insurers $1.3 million for full doses. Many who normally should've grown sick from the drugs never felt side effects. She received 15 years in federal prison.
Dr. Michael Rosin. The Sarasota, Fla. skin doctor who operated on 865 healthy patients to hike his insurance billings by nearly $4 million. Dr. Michael Rosin diagnosed skin cancer though employees had placed chewing gum and Styrofoam on biopsy slides instead of human tissue. He performed 122 surgeries on one elderly man. Rosin received 22 years in federal prison.
Marc Thompson. Deeply in debt from lavish living, the former Chicago grain futures executive torched his home for $730,000 in insurance money. He let his 90-year-old mother Carmen die in the basement to make it seem she had set the fire as a suicide. Thompson took Carmen downstairs, then spread accelerant over the walls and set the basement ablaze. He received 190 years in federal prison.
Robert & Teresa Hammond, Margaret Dillavou & Paul Gaines. Incredibly, the two Union County, Ill. couples videotaped themselves committing a crime: crashing the Hammonds' van into a tree to scam insurance money they needed to pay rent to Dillavou. But Dillavou lost the tape. Her estranged husband found it during an acrimonious divorce and gave it to police. The couples received 24 months of probation.
Michael & Rudi Apelt. Cindy Monkman fell for a handsome German day laborer who lied that he was an international businessman. The Phoenix-area, Ariz. woman agreed to marry him just three weeks after they met. Michael Apelt took out $400,000 in life insurance on Cindy just 10 days after they married. He and brother Rudi soon stabbed her to death in the desert. Both brothers received death sentences.
Tam Vu Pham paid more than 5,000 healthy people to have surgeons operate on them so his Southern California medical clinic could fraudulently bill insurers more than $96 million. Surgeons performed colonoscopies, sweaty-palm surgery and other invasive procedures.
Brian Shechtman bilked more than 1,200 Florida seniors out of at least $4 million. He told them they’d bought discount health coverage but actually sold overpriced life insurance. Many seniors gave up their real health coverage, and some lost their homes and savings to pay medical bills themselves.
Read about previous year’s inductees to the Insurance Fraud Hall of Shame:
