Sixteen indicted in alleged auto insurance scam

From the Boston Globe



By Stephanie Ebbert, Globe Staff | October 14, 2005



LOWELL -- The women known as ''Poochy" and ''Mercy" met their driver outside a McDonald's and pointed out the Volvo they wanted him to smash. The man followed the car as directed, but none too subtly. At one point, he grew frustrated with his accomplice in the Volvo and shouted out the window that the other driver should make it easier to hit him.



Minutes later, he had his collision -- and the passengers had their opportunity to claim $25,000 in medical damages from their insurers, according to court documents.



The arranged-wreck scheme in Lowell in April 2004 was repeated at least twice the next month in Bedford and Tyngsborough, resulting in another $38,000 in false insurance payouts, police and prosecutors say.



Yesterday, Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley announced the indictments of 16 alleged participants in the Lowell auto insurance fraud ring, as part of a statewide crackdown on staging accidents for profit.



Officials stepped up their focus on auto insurance fraud after a 65-year-old Lawrence woman was killed in an allegedly orchestrated crash in September 2003. Police said the woman had paid $200 for a seat in one of the cars intended for a crash at a Lawrence intersection, but was killed after the car slammed into a telephone pole.



Governor Mitt Romney has also signed tougher enforcement legislation and emphasized the economic hazards of a crime that can drive up insurance premiums statewide.



''This is a serious problem that affects the amount of money we pay to insure our cars," Police Superintendent Edward F. Davis III said during a news conference yesterday.



''And our hope is that if we continue this aggressive enforcement that we'll be able to reduce the burden on the people who have to register their cars in the city of Lowell and other urban areas that are really being victimized by the people who run these scams."



Court documents say the Lowell scheme was born in a Worcester apartment building in April 2004. Mercy Encarncion, 27, and Damaris ''Poochy" Matos, 37, the alleged ringleaders, told their neighbor Eric Bonnette, 21, that they made their money by ''playing chicken," setting up collisions between two vehicles to commit insurance fraud, prosecutors say. The two allegedly asked Bonnette to recruit people with cars to participate in collisions and offered to pay him $700 for each accident.



Both Encarncion and Matos were arraigned yesterday in Middlesex Superior Court on six counts of conspiracy to commit motor vehicle insurance fraud. Five Lowell residents and a Revere resident were arraigned on charges that include insurance fraud, conspiracy, and larceny or attempted larceny.