(Photo: Riverside County District Attorney's Office)
Nathan Brown, The Desert Sun 12:08 p.m. PDT July 7, 2016
Former Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver and La Quinta High School alum Jeffery Webb was arrested on multiple felony counts of insurance fraud after investigators say he orchestrated four staged car collisions in 2012 and 2013.
The Riverside County District Attorney's office is prosecuting the case.
The instances resulted in $70,000 in fraudulent claims and a total loss of $139,000. According to a news release from the California Department of Insurance, Webb, who is currently an assistant football coach at La Quinta, had eight co-conspirators, but the Indio resident was identified as the "ringleader" in the schemes and received a large portion of the money paid from the victim insurance companies.
His co-conspirators included former San Diego State teammates Atiyyah Jamal Henderson and Donny Vernon Baker, Webb's brother William Wesley Webb, Cornelius Tau Hearne, Ana Isela Velasquez, Jermaine Lenard Davis, Genevie Ann Federico and Webb's girlfriend at the time of the alleged accidents Darlene Crystal Stewart.
The four allegedly fraudulent accidents took place July 7, 2012, Oct. 15, 2012, Jan. 18, 2013, and March 29, 2013, and involved both privately owned vehicles as well as rental cars that had been bought with insurance coverage before purposefully crashing them into curbs and poles. All four crashes resulted in minor damage to the vehicles, but those involved would always request medical assistance.
On July 3, 2013, court documents state that the Department of Insurance was notified by Progressive Insurance of a potential fraudulent claim that occurred Jan. 18 involving Stewart, Davis and Jeff and William Webb. On July 1, 2013, Stewart testified under oath that the collision was staged and that Jeff Webb had helped orchestrate the incident.
Over the next year, Investigator Troy Deyo interviewed several other accused co-conspirators who similarly explained the crashes they were involved in. They said the crashes had been staged and planned by Webb and that Webb used the term "the Dance" when referring to staging a collision.
Webb, who was arrested on June 28, declined to comment on the situation when reached by phone on Wednesday, but he was interviewed by Deyo on Jan. 15, 2015, as part of the investigation. Court documents state Webb "didn't immediately deny knowledge of the term 'the Dance' until he had a brief private conversation with his father at the end of the interview, where he denied involvement in fraudulent activity." Deyo also noted Webb's left eye began to twitch almost uncontrollably from the denial to the end of their conversation, which Deyo said may have indicated nervousness.
Webb was booked at the Riverside County jail in Blythe before he posted bail and was released June 29. He is scheduled to appear in court next on Aug. 8. Three days before he was arrested, Webb held his seventh annual football camp at La Quinta High School for kids age seven to 18.
Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said in a statement that cases like this are all too common in the state.
"California is ground zero for staged auto collisions," Jones said in the statement. "Organized crime rings are responsible for the majority of staged collisions, which are costly to insurers and consumers."