Essex County, New Jersey Man Sentenced to State Prison for Filing False Insurance Health Care Claims

August 13, 2007 -- TRENTON - New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram and Division of Criminal Justice Director Gregory A. Paw announced that an Essex County man has been sentenced to three years in state prison after pleading guilty to filing false insurance health care claims as part of an automobile insurance fraud scam.

According to Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Greta Gooden Brown, Thomas Merritt, 31, of East Orange, was ordered by Superior Court Judge Nancy Sivilli in Essex County to serve three years in state prison and to pay restitution in an amount yet to be determined. The sentence was pursuant to Merritt’s March 2 guilty plea to health care claims fraud, a charge contained in an Aug. 31, 2006 Essex County grand jury indictment.

In pleading guilty before Judge Sivilli, Merritt admitted that between May 16, 2001 and April 19, 2002, he falsely claimed that he had been injured in an automobile accident which purportedly occurred on May 16, 2001 in Newark. An investigation determined that the accident did not occur and that Merritt had not been injured.

Merritt admitted that he sought medical attention and subsequently had more than $21,000 in fraudulent claims submitted on his behalf from the East Orange Chiropractic Association to Metropolitan Property and Casualty Insurance Company. The claims were for diagnostic and chiropractic treatments related to the purported auto accident.

State Investigator Jarek Pyrzanowski and Deputy Attorney General Richard W. Queen were assigned to the investigation. Queen represented the Office of Insurance Fraud Prosecutor at the sentencing.

The Office of Insurance Fraud Prosecutor was established by the Automobile Insurance Cost Reduction Act of 1998. The office is the centralized state agency that investigates and prosecutes both civil and criminal insurance fraud, as well as Medicaid fraud.

Source: New Jersey Attorney General