Duo who staged New York City car accidents sent to prison

(Legal Newsline) – Two men accused of staging automobile crashes in New York City have received their prison sentences as new reforms proposed by Gov. Kathy Hochul are implemented.

Those measures seek to lower the nation’s highest auto-insurance premiums and allow prosecutors to seek criminal penalties against any individual responsible for a staged accident instead of just the driver. Last month, Jaime Huiracocha and Victor Murillo, described as a ringleader and a co-conspirator, received their prison sentences from Queens County Supreme Court Justice Jerry Iannece.

Huiracocha pleaded guilty to insurance fraud and conspiracy in May and will serve 1-3 years in jail. Murillo pleaded guilty to staging an accident, insurance fraud and conspiracy and will serve two years.

Prosecutors said they staged car crashes on NYC highways in 2024, with Murillo acting as the driver. He would suddenly brake to create rear-end collisions and even went in reverse once when the trailing car braked in time, they said.

Huiracocha, meanwhile, trailed Murillo on the road. Murillo would hop in his car after the wreck and flee the scene, and the passengers in Murillo’s car would exit and claim injuries, dashcam footage showed.

Other alleged participants have also pleaded guilty and are expected to be sentenced soon. The scheme was intended to work the state’s no-fault insurance policy, which is paid by New York drivers and allows them and others to obtain benefits of up to $50,000 for injuries caused in accidents.

The program invites staged accidents and inflated bills from medical-care providers for services that were unnecessary or never performed. A federal indictment against four men filed earlier this year alleged physicians and psychologists were among those to submit fraudulent claims in a separate scheme, and funding companies affiliated with a law firm provided a “veneer of legitimacy,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said.

Auto-insurance premiums in New York had risen to about an average of $4,000 annually, leading Hochul to address alleged schemes like that. Hochul has said insurers reported more than 38,000 incidents of suspected auto-insurance fraud in 2023, which helped tack an extra $300 onto everyone’s yearly premium.

In civil court, Uber and FedEx have filed lawsuits against groups of people it says are staging accidents involving their fleets of vehicles.

“The pick-up locations are residential side streets (usually one-way roads) in Nassau County, which allow the Fraud Ring to lure the unsuspecting… drivers using the Uber app toward a location where a hit-and-run collision will occur,” the Uber suit says.

“The pre-determined locations for the staged collisions are often intersections with stop signs… (T)he Fraud Ring chooses these locations due to the low probability that they are monitored by video cameras.”

The wrecks are usually side-swipes, Uber says, and the defendants then submit fraudulent claims of injury to Uber. Several health care companies are also named as defendants for allegedly verifying these fake injuries and submitting claims to insurance companies like Liberty Mutual, which is co-plaintiff in the suit.

Florida’s 2023 tort reforms partly inspired Hochul’s reforms. An analysis by Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation shows how its 2023 tort reform package has resulted in a 5.6% decrease in average auto insurance rates across the majority of its market.

For example, in 2025, Florida’s largest carrier returned nearly $1 billion in excess profits to 2.7 million policyholders. Florida has seen its double-digit growth of auto insurance rates in 2023 turn into a 7.4 percent reduction in the average rates by 2025.