A Miami clinic owner and four others are in jail on charges of reportedly staging an accident after the clinic owner crashed his HUMVEE into two other cars in a scheme to collect insurance payments, according to investigators with the Florida Department of Financial Services’ Division of Insurance Fraud.
These arrests are the first under a law effective Oct. 1, establishing a mandatory two-year prison sentence for staging auto crashes.
Investigators say Osvadi Marrero, 35, owner of Yosuni Medical Center Corp., conspired with four other individuals to create phony auto accidents to collect payments from Personal Injury Protection (PIP) insurance carriers.
On Nov. 11, Marrero, driving a 2003 HUMVEE, reportedly crashed into two vehicles, a 1997 Nissan and a 2000 Dodge Intrepid. Witnesses called 911, reporting an incident of road rage. When officers arrived, Marrero had reportedly fled and the other drivers reported that only they were involved in the accident. Drivers Omar Lantingua-Gonzalez, 33, of Hialeah, and Ronald Menendez, 20, of Miami, were subsequently arrested for filing false accident reports. All three vehicles were seized.
Lantingua-Gonzalez and Menendez, in addition to passengers Olga Arocha, 37, and Iraida Perez, 56, both of Hialeah, were also arrested and charged with reportedly staging an accident, a second-degree felony. Officers with the Hialeah Police Department initiated the investigation and assisted in the arrests. The suspects were booked into the Miami-Dade County Jail. If convicted, they each face a minimum of two years and up to 15 years in prison.
The charges will be prosecuted by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office.
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