Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley recently signed a bill into law that makes staging an auto accident to steal insurance funds a specific crime.

Del. Dereck E. Davis (D) sponsored House Bill 1409, which limits access to police accident reports and makes it more difficult for criminals to recruit real crash victims into insurance schemes that involve fake injury claims. Only accident victims and reporters will be allowed to gain access to the reports up to 60 days after the crash.

Making staged accidents a specific crime gives prosecutors a device in the courtroom that helps them reduce staged accident rings by convicting the leaders and organizers. According to the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, without them, prosecutors would have to use other laws that may not as easily fit the elements of this crime.

“Phony injury claims can be highly profitable,” said Howard Goldblatt, the Coalition’s director of government affairs, in a release. “That profit incentive makes the rings persistent, well-protected, and hard to penetrate and bust. They can be equally hard to prosecute in court, but targeted fraud laws give prosecutors leverage that can increase convictions.”

Staging a crash could result in up to 15 years in state prison and fines of up to three times the amount of insurance funds stolen.

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