Personal Injury News

Staged Accident Participants Plead Guilty

Three New York City residents: TATIANA ILYAYEV,46, VYACHESLAV ILYAYEV,46, and ROMAN ILYAYEV 37, pled guilty before the U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny, to health care fraud, carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment, a fine of $250,000.00, or both United States Attorney Terrance P. Flynn announced today.

On the same day, SABINA ILYAYEV,36, also of New York City, plead guilty to a one-count of theft from a health care benefit program, carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment, a fine of $250,000.00, or both.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John E. Rogowski, who prosecuted the case, stated that the defendants, in pleading guilty, admitted that between September, 2001, and April, 2004, they were participants in a “staged accident” scheme which was organized in Western New York. On September 27, 2001, in Buffalo, and on October 3, 2001, in Amherst, staged collisions were orchestrated by several other individuals. At the scenes of these staged collisions, individual co-conspirators falsely identified themselves as one of the Ilyayevs. The Ilyayevs, despite the fact that they were not even in Western New York when the staged collisions took place, filed fraudulent no-fault insurance claims in which they each claimed to have been injured as the result of the collisions which they falsely claimed were accidental. The Ilyayevs then went to a medical clinic in Brooklyn, New York, where they sought treatment for purported injuries they falsely claimed were suffered in the “accidental” collisions in Western New York. Medical providers associated with those clinics then submitted claims to insurance companies seeking payments for treatments they claimed were rendered to the Ilyayevs as a result of injuries the Ilyayevs suffered in the Western New York “accidents.” As a result, Travelers and Allstate Insurances companies paid a total of approximately $87,000 to various medical providers for medical treatment that, if actually rendered, was not rendered as a result of injuries received in a real accident.

In pleading guilty, the Ilyayevs also admitted that in furtherance of their criminal scheme, they each pursued bogus personal injury claims in New York City. They each filed a personal injury claim in which they falsely stated that they were injured as a result of automobile accidents in Western New York. As a result of the false claims, Gallagher Bassett Services, Inc., and Travelers Insurance company paid a total of approximately $40,000 in settlements for the bogus personal injury claims to the Ilyayevs and others associated with the Ilyayevs. Read more at buffalo.fbi.gov.

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	Did You Know?
	There are four general types of slip and fall accidents Trip-and-fall accidents, where there is a foreign object in the walking path. Stump-and-fall accidents, where there is an impediment in the walking surface. Step-and-fall accidents, where there is an unexpected failure or hole in the walking surface Slip-and-fall accidents, in which the interface of the shoe and the floor fails Both the property owner as well as the injured person can be held to varying degrees of responsibility for an injury.