Friday, March 08, 2002

8 Charged in Scheme To Rip Off Med Insurers

By ROBERT GEARTY
Daily News Staff Writer

Bensonhurst doctor and lawyer were among eight people charged yesterday with being part of a Brooklyn ring that staged auto accidents and defrauded insurance companies.

The doctor, Josef Sherman, bragged that he had been operating the scam for seven or eight years, Manhattan federal prosecutors said.

The lawyer charged was Solomon Kaplan, the only one of the eight who was not Russian. He had offices on 86th St. in Bensonhurst.

Sherman was accused of regularly falsifying medical records and overbilling insurance companies for patients involved in staged auto accidents.

Prosecutors said the scam, involving numerous fake accidents, was run out of Sherman's Kinto Medical Clinic, on 83rd St. Sherman ran the clinic with his brother, Yevgeny Sherman, who was also among those charged.

Phony Claims Eyed

Participants were paid as much as $1,500 each, authorities said. They could not offer an estimate of how much the ring had scammed from insurance companies.

According to prosecutors, Sherman and his brother allegedly also referred phony accident patients to a law office they controlled so a lawyer could draw up phony insurance accident claims.

From December 1999 until his arrest in July 2001, the lawyer who drew up the fraudulent paperwork was Alexander Galkovich.

He later became a government witness against the Shermans.

After his arrest, Galkovich was forced to sell the law office to Kaplan.

Prosecutors said Sherman began referring phony auto accident cases to Kaplan in 2000.

Faces 5 Years

Sherman and the others were charged with conspiracy, which is punishable by five years in prison.

"The type of fraud with which these defendants are charged raises the cost of insurance for all New Yorkers and, more importantly, threatens the public's safety, as many of these staged accidents victimize innocent third parties," said Manhattan U.S. Attorney James Comey.

The FBI used a confidential informer and an undercover agent as part of their investigation, which began two years ago.

The informer and the undercover agent participated in one of the staged accidents, prosecutors said.