Moriarty brothers put on informal probation for insurance fraud

July 02--Neal and Ross Moriarty were sentenced to a year each of informal probation for their roles in a scheme to reinstate an insurance policy before filing a claim, according to the California Department of Insurance. They had entered no-contest pleas to the fraud in San Luis Obispo Superior Court.

"The department has taken administrative action to revoke Ross Moriarty's agent license," the agency said in a statement Friday.

Neal Moriarty, 38, a Cal Fire captain of Morro Bay, and Ross Moriarty, 42, a licensed insurance agent of Los Osos, were arrested by Cal Fire officials and California Department of Insurance agents last July for their roles in an insurance fraud conspiracy.

The department's investigation revealed that Neal Moriarty hit a deer while driving on Highway 101, causing significant damage to his personal vehicle. He was uninjured in the crash but also uninsured, the state agency said.

While still at the scene of the accident, he called his brother Ross, who used his position as a licensed insurance agent to reinstate Neal Moriarty's automobile insurance, according to the department.

The brothers falsified the timeline of the accident and reported a fraudulent claim to the insurer for $13,709 to repair the damaged vehicle, the department said. Insurance investigators, suspicious of the claim, asked for phone records that Neal Moriarty failed to provide, the agency said.

He withdrew his claim a month later.

The men are the nephews of Al Moriarty, convicted of fraud in a Ponzi scheme in 2014, bilking investors out of millions of dollars. He was ordered in December 2014 to pay about 170 investors $10.2 million.

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