A Riverside man faces 12 years in state prison for his role in a scheme to defraud two insurance companies by illegally selling liens on workers' comp claims.
Rene Montes, 42, pled guilty on June 7, 2010 to 122 felony counts, including 59 counts each of grand theft and insurance fraud, three counts of tax evasion, and one count of conspiracy. How did Montes manage to rack up such a long list of charges? Well, he didn't work alone. He was the last of four defendants to be sentenced after the other three pled guilty in May.
Montes, who owned a surgery center in La Habra, worked with the three claim adjusters to defraud AIG and Matrix Absence Management out of $1.4 million. Montes sent more than 50 letters falsely claiming to have the authority to negotiate, settle, and collect payment on pending liens on behalf of doctors and hospitals.
Of course the medical meddler did not have the authority to collect those liens, so on Feb. 2, 2007, when AIG received a demand letter for a lien that had already been paid, Montes' machination was discovered. AIG conducted an internal audit, and found that the three claim adjusters, Hector Porrata, George Martinez, and Cara Cruz-Thompson, were the only three adjusters to have settled liens with Montes. Now all authorities had to do was follow their trail to their leader.
The troublesome trio fraudulently settled Montes' claims, and paid him more than $1.17 million from AIG, and $310,000 from Matrix. Porrata pled guilty to 50 counts each of grand theft and insurance fraud, and one count of conspiracy. He was sentenced to eight years in state prison and ordered to pay more than $1 million in restitution. Martinez pled guilty to 11 felony counts each of grand theft and insurance fraud, and one count of conspiracy. The court ordered him to serve two years in prison and pay more than $300,000 in restitution.
Thompson pled guilty to 12 counts each of grand theft and insurance fraud, and one count of conspiracy. She will spend two years in prison and pay more than $200,000 in restitution. Finally, the leader of the group, Montes, will serve 12 years in state prison, and owes more than $1.7 million in restitution.
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