A former professional baseball participant has been arrested and charged with insurance coverage fraud.

Yuniesky Betancourt, a former shortstop for the Milwaukee Brewers, was considered one of 4 folks arrested and charged within the case in Florida’s Miami-Dade County.

Betancourt, who’s being represented by the general public defender’s workplace, is at the moment free on bond.

“It doesn’t matter how intelligent you suppose your scheme could also be, when you commit fraud in Florida, you may be caught and delivered to justice,” mentioned Florida Chief Monetary Officer Jimmy Patronis. “Staging accidents is extremely harmful, and fraud like this prices each Floridian within the type of larger auto insurance coverage premiums. We should proceed to work collectively to do the whole lot we will to uncover these fraud schemes and produce these rip-off artists to justice.”

In keeping with DFS investigators, Betancourt – together with alleged accomplices Abel Vera, Nancy Mercedes Pena, and Maura Perez – staged a crash in Miami in December of 2022. After reporting the accident to the police and the car’s insurer, Kemper Insurance coverage, the 4 allegedly sought therapy and bodily remedy for accidents they didn’t really maintain.

Kemper Insurance coverage was billed greater than $61,000 and paid out greater than $22,800 for remedy, to which not one of the 4 had been entitled, the DFS mentioned.

After performing an accident reconstruction and gathering knowledge from a automobile occasion knowledge recorder, investigators concluded that the accident by no means occurred as reported to the police and Kemper Insurance coverage, the DFS mentioned.

If convicted on all expenses, every of the 4 alleged conspirators may serve as much as 10 years in jail, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Along with the Milwaukee Brewers, Betancourt performed for the Kansas Metropolis Royals and the Seattle Mariners. He spent 9 seasons within the main leagues and made nearly $16 million in profession earnings, in line with the Journal Sentinel.

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