A federal judge in N.Y. is cracking down on an engineering firm that tried to cover up losses caused by Superstorm Sandy, reports Bloomberg Businessweek. U.S. Magistrate Judge Gary Brown was reviewing a dispute over damage suffered by homeowners in Long Beach, N.Y., when he discovered the fraud.
According to Businessweek, Florida-based insurer Wright National Flood Insurance sent an employee from U.S. Forensic, an engineering firm retained by Wright, to the hurricane-damaged house. The employee wrote a report concluding that the home had been damaged beyond repair. After merely reviewing a few photographs, a second engineer for U.S. Forensic rewrote the report to say the home hadn't been damaged at all.
The process, called a "peer review" by U.S. Forensic, was concealed from the homeowners and was only discovered by chance, Brown told Businessweek. Lawyers for Wright indicated the peer review process may have affected hundreds of Sandy claims, the judge adds.
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