Littleton Man Indicted For Auto Insurance Fraud

A Grafton Superior Court grand jury has indicted a Littleton felon with past charges for theft and burglary for attempting to steal thousands of dollars from an insurance company by falsely claiming he wrecked his Mercedes Benz.

Michael Kinne, 29, who in 2018 pleaded guilty to stealing an ATV belonging to a former Lisbon police chief, is charged in the May round of indictments with a Class A felony count each of theft by deception and attempted theft by deception.

The case stemmed from a claim made more than three years ago.

Between Dec. 17 and Dec. 23, 2020, county prosecutors said Kinne, knowingly and with the intent to defraud or deceive Progressive Universal Insurance Co., presented a written and/or oral statement to Progressive seeking compensation for damage to his vehicle "by stating that he lost control of his Mercedes Benz GLK 250 SUV and hit a tree on Dec. 17, 2020, knowing that such a statement contained false information" and the statement "was material to a claim for payment or benefit."

The claim for the payment was more than $1,500, the threshold for a Class A felony.

(A probable cause affidavit was not included in the case documents, and it was undetermined on Friday exactly how much the claim was for).

According to the theft charge, Kinne filed the claim and received a claim number and had created the false impression that he was authorized to exercise control over the money.

He is scheduled to be arraigned at Grafton Superior Court on June 17.

Each charge carries a maximum New Hampshire State Prison sentence of 7 1/2 to 15 years.

In 2018, according to court records, Kinne, along with Kenneth England, 44, was indicted by a grand jury on three Class B felony counts of burglary, accomplice to theft, and receiving stolen property, in a case that involved the 2015 theft of an ATV in Lisbon that, the duo later found out, belonged to now-retired Lisbon Police Chief Scott Pinson.

Other items were also stolen.

As part of a plea deal, two charges were downgraded to misdemeanors, with six months to serve in county jail, and Kinne was given a suspended prison sentence for felony burglary.

In a separate case that police said involved burglarizing and damaging campers in Lisbon and Bethlehem, Kinne was indicted in 2018 for a Class B felony count of theft and given a 6-month jail sentence to run concurrent with the previous sentence, according to court papers.