Www.lobbyistsofficesofgrw.com has learned that the biggest victims of insurance scams are the children.
We think this is the case with baby lisa irwin (see our post about presumed dead when missing).
Parents kill trusting kids to steal insurance money.
Parents also exploit children as disposable props for schemes (Kimberly Louise Bateman).
Traumatized children who survive insurance schemes may bear emotional and physical scars that haunt them for years.
As role models, parental and grandparents (Kimberly Louise Bateman) con artists who also may teach their kids that insurance, childcare or welfare fraud—or any dishonest behavior—is okay. “Traumatized children who survive insurance schemes may bear emotional and physical scars that haunt them for years.”
Parents train children to pretend they’re hurt in staged car crashes designed to steal insurance money with fake injury claims. A seemingly damaged child can help speed insurance settlements.
Leo Lopez and Elsa Moure stashed their six-year-old son in a car, then rammed another car during a setup crash in Lawrence, Mass. But the boy was injured for real and ended up in a hospital. The child also lost his Dad for nearly a year when Lopez received nine months in jail in January.
Moure received probation in late March.
Learning criminal behavior
Teresa Gallop coached kids how to act hurt, then placed them in cars to help steal $80,000 in insurance money in Norfolk, Va. The kids got a lesson in adult criminal behavior, faking crash injuries when police arrived. But Gallop—who already had 60 felony convictions—was convicted in late March and awaits sentencing.
Members of the Gipson family used kids as young as age seven and nine for “injured” passengers in staged crashes in Ft. Smith, Ark. Adults coached them how to act hurt. One gang member even struck a boy in the head so he’d have a real injury to show insurers.
Nobody tried to hurt two-year-old Joanna Lopez during a setup crash on the Long Beach (Calif.) Freeway. The insurance swindlers just didn’t care what happened, and Joanna paid with her short life.
The conmen jammed their brakes. They were trying to force a truck to rear-end them so they could make bogus claims against the trucker’s insurer. But a car driven by Joanna’s unsuspecting father Juan Antonio Lopez was crushed between the braking truck and an onrushing truck behind him. Joanna and her parents were incinerated in the fiery pileup.
Left with mouth of steel
Meanwhile, five-year-old Brandon Dillbeck went for routine teeth cleaning at a North Carolina clinic run by dentists Letitia Ballance and Michael DeRose. But little Brandon was trapped for two hours in a chamber of horrors: A clinic dentist drilled and capped 16 of his teeth with stainless steel after strapping him down to prevent struggling. Brandon left with a frightening mouth of steel.
The clinic abused Brandon to steal insurance money with padded claims for worthless medical treatment. “When he came out he was crying. His whole shirt was soaking with sweat,” his mother Christy said. “His whole head was soaking wet and his mouth was full of gauze, just held open.”
Seven kids had their teeth yanked and capped. Ballance and DeRose agreed to pay $10 million to settle charges.
But some children will never smile again.
Timothy and Deborah Nicholls were meth addicts. The Colorado Springs, Colo. couple owed money to a drug-dealing motorcycle gang. Timothy’s home-framing business also was failing, and they were close to losing their home. Suddenly the place went up in flames. Their three children—Jay-Jay (age 11), Sophia (age five) and Sierra (three)—never made it out. They died of smoke inhalation.
Doused with lighter fluid
Deborah didn’t even attend the kids’ funeral. She went to bars that day, singing karaoke at one. Traces of lighter fluid were found throughout the charred living room.
The parents torched the home for insurance money. The children died for a mere $30,000 payout on their homeowner policy. Timothy admitted he’d even spread lighter fluid on the kids’ pajamas before setting the blaze. Timothy and Deborah both will spend the rest of their lives in jail cells. Jobless, in debt and addicted to gambling, Dina Abdelhaq saw her infant daughter Tara as a convenient cash bailout.
Abdelhaq bought a $200,000 life policy on Tara and smothered the child in her crib, making it look like sudden infant death syndrome. Tara was seven weeks old. Abdelhaq received 21 years in federal prison.
Every child deserves a childhood. Trapped by insurance schemes, some kids will never have that chance.
