Two crooked cops and a former professional wrestler helped run New York’s biggest auto scam, staging crashes to rip off up to $10 million from insurers, investigators charged yesterday.
The ring – which cleared $1 million between February 1999 and July 2000 and up to 10 times that amount over two decades – was smashed yesterday when FBI agents and NYPD cops swooped down at dawn, arresting 52 people.
Alleged ringleader Quentin “Flint” Hawkins, 52, of Brooklyn, is accused of bribing the cops – described by investigators as two of his nine “lieutenants” – to help set up the “accidents” and write false reports.
Hawkins, who allegedly boasted of making $10,000 a week, would collect paybacks from corrupt medical clinics for sending “crash victims” for treatment, authorities say.
Most of those arrested were recruited to pose as crash victims and then seek medical treatment for fake neck, head and back injuries.
The clinics would fraudulently claim up to $50,000 per victim from insurers, according to an indictment handed up in Brooklyn federal court.
Former World Wrestling Federation star Carmine Azzato, 31, of Brooklyn – who was on the tag team Demolition – was accused of acting as a driver in one of the phony accidents.
Rodney Hawkins, 33, a detective in Brooklyn’s 70th precinct, was charged with filing seven false accident reports.
The cop, who the feds believe is a cousin of the ringleader, allegedly allowed his own car to be used in one fake crash.
That “accident” had to be staged a second time when the first collision didn’t cause enough damage, it was charged.
Officer Edwin DeLoatch, 35, an NYPD Police Academy instructor, allegedly dialed 911 after being involved in a staged accident in which a car slid into another vehicle in Crown Heights.
“Flint” was so impressed with DeLoatch’s work that he promised him future payments of between $1,500 and $2,000 a week, according to a conversation secretly taped by investigators.
Both cops were released on $25,000 bonds and face up to five years in jail.
“Flint” Hawkins was charged with fraud, bribery and interfering with a witness. He faces up to 25 years in jail.
His son, Aubrey, 25, and daughter Chastity, 26, were also accused of helping to stage accidents and posing as crash victims.
Theresa Okeh, a Health and Hospitals cop, was accused of causing an accident in Queens by stopping suddenly, resulting in an innocent motorist hitting her car.
She also was involved in another scheme, it was charged. She allegedly was paid by “Flint” to hand over information about city-hospital trauma patients. He then sold the information to personal-injury lawyers.
One clinic manager was charged – Garri Zhigun, who ran Pacific Medical Services Center, now called Essential Medical Center, on Avenue U in Brooklyn.
Investigators, who dubbed their operation “In Like Flint,” unearthed the auto scam while investigating Hawkins for allegedly bribing a Health Department officer.
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