For the second time this week, California’s insurance coverage watchdogs introduced the arrest of a driver who allegedly orchestrated visitors accidents after which collected funds for the harm.
In each instances, the suspects maintained YouTube channels of “dangerous driver” movies.
Arrested Wednesday was a 40-year-old man from Yucaipa, in San Bernardino County. He was charged with six felony counts of assault with a lethal weapon, 11 felony counts of insurance coverage fraud and 5 felony counts of kid endangerment, the California Division of Insurance coverage stated in a press launch Thursday.
His spouse, additionally 40, was charged with one felony rely of insurance coverage fraud and two counts of felony youngster endangerment.
A toddler was reportedly a passenger throughout a number of incidents wherein a car was apparently deliberately crashed.
The person got here to the insurance coverage division’s consideration final month when the San Bernardino County sheriff’s division advised the company a couple of suspicious collision wherein the suspect’s car was rear-ended. Based mostly on proof from surveillance video and witnesses, CDI detectives arrested the person on suspicion of assault with a lethal weapon and inflicting a car collision for the aim of presenting a false declare.
They then started trying into his historical past of insurance coverage claims and his YouTube channel (“BLU3 GH057”), whose description stated it was used “to point out how silly individuals are on the highway.” Its dozens of movies included about 23 collisions — 17 of which had been related to insurance coverage claims — and 42 tried collisions or highway rage incidents, the CDI stated.
The channel has since been faraway from YouTube. Its description claimed all of the movies had “been reviewed by CHP and deemed the opposite driver at fault.”
Each the Yucaipa suspects had been jailed on $500,000 bail every.
On the identical day as their arrests, a Stockton man was arraigned on 54 felony counts of insurance coverage fraud, assault with a lethal weapon and reckless driving, after a joint investigation by the insurance coverage division and the San Joaquin County district lawyer’s workplace.
He, too, is accused of orchestrating accidents and submitting claims for insurance coverage payouts.
That suspect — a AAA tow truck driver who has taught defensive driving programs — runs the Stockton Drivers YouTube channel, which has a whole lot of clips of dangerous habits on the roads.