MEC&F Expert Engineers : 04/22/18

Sunday, April 22, 2018

Tamby Yagan, 41, a speeding Paterson, New Jersey police officer was killed after he drove his speeding police car into a parked SUV in Getty Avenue in Paterson, NJ












PATERSON, New Jersey (WABC) --



Authorities say a speeding Paterson, New Jersey police officer was killed in a car crash Sunday morning.

At about 10:50 a.m., police responded to the area of 150 Getty Avenue in Paterson in response to a vehicle collision.


The Passaic County Prosecutor says the on-duty police officer was driving a marked patrol unit when it collided with a parked SUV vehicle.

The officer was the only person involved in the crash and was pronounced dead at Saint Joseph's Regional Medical Center. No one else was injured.



The officer's name has not been released. 

A police source identified the officer as Tamby Yagan, who had been with the Paterson police force for 12 years.
 
The cause of the crash remains under investigation. 



  However, based on the frontal right damage to Tamby Yagan's car, he was driving at a significant speed prior to the collision.  He most likely tried to illegally pass another vehicle ahead of him. and he end up crashing into the parked vehicle in Getty Avenue.





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An on-duty city police officer was killed in a motor vehicle crash on Getty Avenue on Sunday morning, Passaic County prosecutor Camelia Valdes and police chief Troy Oswald said in a joint statement.

Police responded to report of a motor vehicle collision at 150 Getty Avenue at about 10:50 a.m. At the scene responding officers discovered their colleague had crashed into a parked vehicle.

Authorities did not identify the officer. A police source identified the officer as Tamby Yagan, who had been with the Paterson police force for 12 years. He was inside a marked police vehicle during the crash.

Yagan, 41, of Wayne, was the only person involved in the crash. He was taken to St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center for treatment. He later died from his injuries, according to police.

Authorities said no other parties were injured as a result of the crash. Cause of the crash remains under investigation, said authorities.

Community leaders who knew the officer expressed their condolences.

“My heart is broken,” said councilman Luis Velez, who knew the officer for more than a decade. “He was a really nice guy and a good office. He was a high standard police officer. I never saw him looking down at people.”

“Amazing cop,” said former three-term councilman Aslon Goow, who has known the officer for 20 years, on his way to the hospital to pay his respects to the deceased officer. “A real gentleman. Very humble. Very kind.”

Goow, who is Circassian, said the officer hails from the area’s Circassian community.


 

Police director Jerry Speziale said the police department is mourning the loss of one of its own. He referred all inquires to the prosecutor’s office.

Tamby Yagan, 41, a speeding Paterson, New Jersey police officer was killed in Paterson, NJ after he drove his speeding marked police vehicle into a parked SUV.












PATERSON, New Jersey (WABC) --



Authorities say a speeding Paterson, New Jersey police officer was killed in a car crash Sunday morning.

At about 10:50 a.m., police responded to the area of 150 Getty Avenue in Paterson in response to a vehicle collision.


The Passaic County Prosecutor says the on-duty police officer was driving a marked patrol unit when it collided with a parked SUV vehicle.

The officer was the only person involved in the crash and was pronounced dead at Saint Joseph's Regional Medical Center. No one else was injured.



The officer's name has not been released. 

A police source identified the officer as Tamby Yagan, who had been with the Paterson police force for 12 years.
 
The cause of the crash remains under investigation. 



  However, based on the frontal right damage to Tamby Yagan's car, he was driving at a significant speed prior to the collision.  He most likely tried to illegally pass another vehicle ahead of him. and he end up crashing into the parked vehicle in Getty Avenue.





=============================



An on-duty city police officer was killed in a motor vehicle crash on Getty Avenue on Sunday morning, Passaic County prosecutor Camelia Valdes and police chief Troy Oswald said in a joint statement.

Police responded to report of a motor vehicle collision at 150 Getty Avenue at about 10:50 a.m. At the scene responding officers discovered their colleague had crashed into a parked vehicle.

Authorities did not identify the officer. A police source identified the officer as Tamby Yagan, who had been with the Paterson police force for 12 years. He was inside a marked police vehicle during the crash.

Yagan, 41, of Wayne, was the only person involved in the crash. He was taken to St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center for treatment. He later died from his injuries, according to police.

Authorities said no other parties were injured as a result of the crash. Cause of the crash remains under investigation, said authorities.

Community leaders who knew the officer expressed their condolences.

“My heart is broken,” said councilman Luis Velez, who knew the officer for more than a decade. “He was a really nice guy and a good office. He was a high standard police officer. I never saw him looking down at people.”

“Amazing cop,” said former three-term councilman Aslon Goow, who has known the officer for 20 years, on his way to the hospital to pay his respects to the deceased officer. “A real gentleman. Very humble. Very kind.”

Goow, who is Circassian, said the officer hails from the area’s Circassian community.


 

Police director Jerry Speziale said the police department is mourning the loss of one of its own. He referred all inquires to the prosecutor’s office.

Jason Dalley, 55, a South Florida personal injury and criminal defense lawyer gets Prison for $23M Auto Insurance Fraud Scheme. He admitted he was part of a group of corrupt clinic owners, chiropractors and attorneys who operated mostly in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties.


Jason Dalley, 55, a personal injury and criminal defense lawyer Gets Prison for $23M Auto Insurance Fraud Scheme 

April 20, 2018

A Florida man has been sentenced to more than a year in prison for his role in a $23 million auto insurance fraud involving chiropractors’ clinics.

The SunSentinel reports 55-year-old Jason Dalley wept in court April 16 as a judge sentenced him to spend a year and nine months in prison and pay more than $1.8 million in restitution.


Dalley admitted he was part of a group of clinic owners, chiropractors and attorneys involved in the scheme. Court records show the fraud involving clinics in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties brought in at least $23 million from 10 insurance companies between 2010 and 2017.

Dalley ran a personal injury and criminal defense law firm in Boca Raton. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit health care, mail and wire fraud.




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Family and friends of Jason Dalley say they know him as a concerned attorney who went the extra mile for his clients, a dedicated Little League coach and a devoted dad and husband.

But Dalley wept in court Monday as he told a judge about another aspect of his life — how he allowed his “passion for helping people to give way to greed.”

Dalley was taken into custody in court in Fort Lauderdale after he was sentenced to one year and nine months in federal prison for his role in a massive $23 million auto insurance fraud case involving South Florida chiropractors’ clinics. He also owes more than $1.8 million in restitution.

Dalley, 55, of Boca Raton, ran a personal injury and criminal defense law firm in Delray Beach until he pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of conspiring to commit health care, mail and wire fraud. He gave up his license to practice law last month.

“It started slowly and quickly spun out of control,” Dalley said of his involvement in the fraud.

He admitted he was part of a group of corrupt clinic owners, chiropractors and attorneys who operated mostly in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties. The fraud raked in at least $23 million from 10 auto insurance companies between 2010 and 2017, according to court records.

Dalley admitted he illegally paid kickbacks of $2,000 to $2,500 to a clinic operator, tow-truck drivers and other so-called “runners” who broke the law by referring clients to him. Dalley filed auto insurance claims on behalf of those clients and received payments.

He paid about $790,000 to “purchase those patients” while he was involved in the fraud between 2012 and 2015, prosecutors Jeffrey Kaplan and Paul Schwartz told the judge.

Dalley’s defense team, Marc Nurik and Guy Fronstin, emphasized his many years of community service and his strong reputation as a generous and caring family man. Dalley’s wife said she and their three teenage sons are devastated by his imprisonment. 




His 15 years of coaching young baseball players in the Boca Raton Little League stood out because he worked so hard to encourage players to be good people, as well as to play the game well, the defense said.

Dalley had been facing about four years in federal prison, but prosecutors recommended a lighter punishment because Dalley cooperated extensively with federal and state investigations of the fraud. He agreed early on to cooperate and secretly record some conversations with other criminals. His undercover help convinced other defendants to plead guilty before trial, they said.

U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas agreed the crime was serious and said Dalley violated his oath as an attorney. But he said it was important to recognize Dalley’s cooperation with investigators. The judge said a federal prison term of one year and nine months was sufficient punishment to deter other attorneys from going “for the quick, easy, greedy buck.”

The ringleaders of the fraud, Felix Filenger, 41, of Sunny Isles, and Andrew Rubinstein, 48, of Miami, pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges in December. They admitted the fraud involved ripping off auto insurance providers by illegally billing for Personal Injury Protection (PIP) insurance funds under Florida’s no-fault law.

The fraud involved making kickback payments to get people who could legally access supposedly confidential traffic accident reports to illegally steer drivers and passengers to the corrupt chiropractic clinics, investigators said. Once there, the “patients” were signed up for unnecessary and excessive treatment and referred to attorneys who tried to force auto insurance companies to pay settlements, records show.

Dalley was previously disciplined twice by the Florida Bar, receiving an admonishment and a public reprimand, in 2009 and 2012.

Former Whitman, Mass. police sergeant and VA-fund embezzler Glenn Paul Pearson, 62, is now facing 18 new criminal complaints for insurance fraud




Glenn Paul Pearson, owner of CHC Insurance Agency, currently serving time for tax fraud, is facing at least 19 new insurance fraud complaints in two communities.

BROCKTON, Mass. — A Whitman man currently serving time in federal prison for tax fraud is now accused of running a widespread insurance fraud scam.

Glenn Paul Pearson, 62, is now facing 18 new criminal complaints lodged against him by Brockton police after separate victims have come forward over a two-month period.

The Enterprise first reported the new charges on Feb. 23, a day after Pearson was issued a summons on a charge of fraud by an insurance agent or broker.

Brockton police officer Thomas Robinson applied for an application for criminal complaint on Feb. 22 after a city woman walked into the police station to report insurance fraud. The woman accused Pearson, her insurance agent, and his business, Brockton-based CHC Insurance Agency, of failing to pay her auto insurance since September.


The woman told police she paid $210 to CHC Insurance for five months, but learned her vehicle wasn’t insured when she was in a crash.

The charges kept piling on over the next few weeks as victim after victim told Brockton police they were scammed. One woman made a $500 down-payment, then paid $146 for three months. Another woman paid almost $1,000 up front on her policy for a new vehicle. And a man paid $280 for five months on a premium he considered affordable due to having several points on his license.

But police say none of them actually had valid insurance.

As of Friday, Pearson was facing 18 new complaints, the most recent filed on Wednesday. Four of the complaints were filed by police in February, 10 in March and four so far in April. All the complaints include insurance fraud by an agent or broker and several include larceny over $250.

He is also facing at least one complaint in another community -- Weymouth -- as police charged him with insurance fraud against a town resident.

The first complaint came about a week before Pearson was due to report to federal prison on unrelated charges. Pearson was arrested in August 2016 and charged with wire fraud, misappropriation by a federal fiduciary, making false statements and preparing fraudulent tax returns.

He pleaded guilty last May to the charges and was sentenced in November to serve 48 months in federal prison with three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay restitution to the VA in the amount of $252,992 and restitution to the IRS in the amount of $826,865.

The federal conviction was a result of Pearson embezzling more than $250,000 in VA-issued benefit money from the accounts of eight disabled veterans from 2007 to 2012. He also prepared tax returns that included false credits and fictitious deductions in an effort to obtain bigger refunds for his clients than they were entitled to receive. Pearson admitted to causing a total tax loss of more than $1.5 million.

After his attorney won him a two-month reprieve from starting his sentence so he could train someone to take over his insurance business, which moved to 930 Crescent St., in Brockton after his Whitman location was raided by the FBI in 2015, Pearson reported to the Devens Federal Medical Center in Ayer on March 1, according to the online U.S. Bureau of Prisons database.

Pearson, a former Whitman police sergeant of a dozen years, is listed as inmate No. 99722-038 and is set to be released from the Devens prison on Aug. 23, 2021, according to inmate records. That potential release date indicates he could be released before his full four-year sentence in completed.

Pearson will be summonsed to court on the new complaints to face clerk magistrate’s hearings to determine if criminal charges are issued.

Additional Insured Coverage When Your Subcontractor's Employee Is Injured



In the construction industry, higher-tier contractors (such as general contractors) frequently require their subcontractors to name them as additional insureds on the subcontractor’s liability insurance policies. When an employee of the subcontractor is injured on the job, the employee may bring a claim against the general contractor for failure to supervise the worksite or similar claims. Whether the employee’s bodily injury claim against the general contractor is covered by the subcontractor’s general liability policy will be predicated in large part on the specific form of the Employers Liability Exclusion found in the subcontractor’s policy. Additional insureds usually argue that such an exclusion applies only to bar coverage for the actual employer of the injured employee (i.e. the named insured-subcontractor), particularly where the policy contains a separation of insureds provision. Insurers, however, contend that the exclusion should preclude coverage for all insureds (including the additional insureds).

Recently, in Vivify Construction, LLC v. Nautilus Ins. Co., the Illinois Court of Appeals addressed a particularly broad exclusion, which precluded coverage for bodily injury to the employees of any insured arising out of employment by any insured or where the injured party was performing duties related to any insured’s business, and further precluded coverage for injuries sustained by any insured’s subcontractor’s employees. Vivify Construction, LLC v. Nautilus Ins. Co., -- N.E.3d --, 2017 IL App (1st) 170192, 2018 WL 562049 (Jan. 24, 2018). Finding the phrase “any insured” to be unambiguous, the court rejected the additional insured’s attempt to present extrinsic evidence concerning the meaning of the policy provisions and their application to the insurer’s duty to defend. Id. at *4-*5. The court held that the exclusion at issue unambiguously precluded coverage where the additional insured was sued for the injury of one of its subcontractor’s employees. Id. at *5. The court further rejected application of the separation of insureds provision, finding it had no material impact on the exclusion at issue. Id. at *6.

Other courts reject the application of the Employers Liability Exclusion to an additional insured being sued by the named insured’s employee, particularly where the policy at issue uses the phrase “the insured” as opposed to the phrase “any insured.” See Travelers Ins. Co. v. Auto-Owners Mut) Ins. Co., 203 N.E.2d 846, 850 (Ohio Ct. App. 1964) (“Since the claimant is not an employee of the assured against whom the claim is asserted, the employee-exclusion clause of appellant’s policy does not affect its liability.”); see also Mut. Benefit Ins. Co. v. Politsopoulos, 115 A.3d 844, 854 (Pa. 2015) (holding that employer’s liability exclusion was inapplicable when the claimant was an employee of the named insured, not the additional insured seeking coverage). General contractors and others seeking additional insured status are well-advised to review the named insured’s policy, and analyze whether the Employers Liability Exclusion within it will protect them in the event of an injury to the named insured’s employee.