False Hit and Run Fraud—Florida

Amount: Unknown

After months of investigation into an unsolved crime, a daughter rejoices after seeing justice following the arrest of a suspect in a hit-and-run that caused her 88 year-old father's death. A man was arrested early last week by the Fruitland Park police based on Sumter County warrants that charged him with leaving the scene of an accident. He pleaded no contest to a charge of insurance fraud in connection with the August 2016 accident that severely injured the victim, who died on New Year's Day in 2017. The victim's daughter cared for her father up until his death. Her mother is still living with her. The accident left the victim with a broken neck and other injuries, and the victim's daughter took investigating into her own hands. After the accident, she visited the scene of the crash and found the Ford truck emblem from the pickup that hit her father. The fraudster claimed his vehicle had been damaged on the day of the accident on the Florida Turnpike in a hit and run, but failed to mention that it was he who did all of the hitting and running.