Cops: SJ dad used young twins in $140K scam
Matt Flowers, @CP_MFlowers 9:40 a.m. EDT June 16, 2016
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TRENTON, NJ – A South Jersey man stole more than $140,000 by collecting insurance payouts over phony hospital stays for his twin sons, authorities said.
Steven Herder, 40, of Lindenwold, was indicted on second-degree charges of insurance fraud, impersonation, and theft by deception for allegedly filing five false claims to his insurer, Aflac, between June 2012 and November 2014, the state Attorney General's Office announced Wednesday.
Herder also was charged with third-degree attempted theft by deception and five counts of fourth-degree forgery in connection with the fraudulent claims. The boys were between 6 months and 3 years old when the claims were submitted, prosecutors said.
“Most parents would never dream of using their young children as a ruse to steal money from an insurance carrier, but this father allegedly thought nothing of manufacturing hospital records alleging his young sons were spending weeks on end in the hospital,” acting Attorney General Robert Lougy said in a release. “In continuing down the path of criminal greed, Herder then allegedly used those fake records to bolster his fraudulent insurance claims.”
The claims sought payment for five stays — ranging from 11 weeks to 26 weeks — at West Jersey Hospital in Voorhees for one or the other of his twin boys. Herder forged three doctors’ signatures on the fake hospital records, which he’d manufactured on a computer, according to prosecutors.