Criminal charges have been filed against Philadelphia insurance agent Paul Franck Baptiste along with Daniel Charles, also of Philadelphia and Bernard Pierre of Brooklyn, NY arising out of an elaborate scheme to defraud insurance companies according to a report by Gantdaily.com.
The scheme involved rate evasion whereby 22 residents of New York filed false applications for insurance claiming they were residents of Pennsylvania because auto insurance rates are lower there. In many cases, applicants not only falsified their address but they also provided false information to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation in order to obtain Pennsylvania State Driver’s licenses.
Baptiste actually provided a fake address for many of the applicants. They used one of his own properties in Philadelphia. Some used an address in Clarion, PA on a street that does not even exist, and others used addresses in Philadelphia, Allentown and State College. The investigation revealed that non of the fraudsters lived at any of these addresses, but instead most came from Brooklyn, NY and surrounding areas.
The charges for insurance fraud alone could mean up to 7 years in prison and $15,000 in fines. Baptiste and others also face charges for corruption, criminal conspiracy, filing false title application, and unsworn falsifications to authorities, which adds thousands in fines and several years in prison.
