N.J. Man Faces Additional Charges

New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey announced that a Camden County man, previously sentenced to 10 years in state prison for stealing more than $140,000 in Sept. 11 survivor benefits, has admitted committing additional frauds, including staging automobile accidents to collect insurance money and credit card fraud.

According to Vaughn McKoy, director, division of criminal justice, Mark Christopher, a.k.a. Mark Valentine, Mark Palmerri, Mark Alexander, Eric Self, formerly of Camden County, pled guilty before Camden County Superior Court Judge William Cook to charges of health care claims fraud, theft by deception and credit card fraud. As a result of the guilty pleas, Christopher, currently serving 10 years in prison, faces up to 10 more years.

Investigations by the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor and the Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau confirmed evidence that Christopher is a career criminal, who has lived his entire life through false identities and criminal schemes. He pled guilty to charges, admitting that he participated in at least eight staged automobile accidents in Camden and Burlington Counties. As a result of the phony accidents, Christopher submitted more than $17,000 in fraudulent property damage claims, and in one instance, a $4,000 fraudulent bodily injury claim.

Christopher used numerous aliases and various schemes in staging the accidents, favoring the use of standard insurance policies purchased in the course of renting U-Haul type trucks. In one claim, he reportedly rented a U-Haul truck in the name of Mark Valentine and staged an accident with a car (registered under the name Mark Palmerri) driven by his girlfriend. A fraudulent claim was submitted to U-Haul’s insurance company, Republic Western Insurance, which paid a $4,181 accident claim.

In another staged accident, Christopher’s girlfriend reportedly leased a truck from Penske Trucks using the fictitious name of Lisa Palmerri. Fast Track Auto Claims, the company that provides insurance services for Penske Trucks, paid a $4,254 accident claim to Mark Alexander, another alias used by Mark Christopher.

Christopher’s indictment for the Sept. 11 fraud charged that he had applied to the American Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency seeking more than $140,000 in post-disaster aid. The investigations determined that in separate applications he reportedly claimed that his wife “Lisa Palmerri” and his wife “Kim Christopher” had died in the World Trade Center tragedy. The indictments charged that neither “Lisa Palmerri” nor “Kim Christopher” ever existed.

Topics Fraud New Jersey