Article - April 18, 2008 - Eagle Tribune

Court document alleges how auto fraud scam worked

By Mark E. Vogler

Chris Ortega claims he and other "runners" could make $300 for picking up patients from crashes that never happened and driving them in his van to Haverhill Family Chiropractic. After getting paid in cash by Dr. Troy Wheelwright, he said the clinic owner would ask questions about the accident report and instruct him to make sure the crash participants knew where they were "injured."

Later, he might drive the clients to the Andover law offices of Berger & Hyde. There, he would be paid $200 by attorney James Hyde, who would review the accident reports that Ortega brought. Hyde would remind him that runners who set up the accidents were responsible for "coaching" the accident participants so they knew what to say.

Those are the allegations made by Ortega in a document filed this week in Salem Superior Court outlining the state attorney general's case against two area lawyers and two area chiropractors who were recently indicted by a grand jury investigating auto insurance fraud.

But Ortega claims he and other runners also did business with the lawyer and chiropractor handling the passengers involved in the other car of a two-car accident. He and other witnesses quoted in the attorney general's statement identified the other professionals involved as Lawrence attorney Socrates De La Cruz and North Andover chiropractor Michael Kaplan. The four professionals often worked in tandem on two-car crashes investigated by the Lawrence auto insurance fraud task force.

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