North Carolina Woman Pleads Guilty In Staged Crashes
June 27--WILMINGTON -- A Wilmington woman was sentenced Tuesday to at least five years in prison for her role in two staged car accidents in 2015 in which she filed fraudulent insurance claims.
Jessica Goodman, 40, pleaded guilty in New Hanover County Superior Court to three counts of insurance fraud, three counts of attempting to obtain property by false pretenses and one count of conspiracy to obtain property by false pretenses. Judge Imelda Pate sentenced her to five to nine years in prison and agreed to note in the record Goodman be allowed to participate in a work-release program.
On Oct. 10, 2015, Goodman and her daughter Shaquetta Washington, 21; and Teresa Halsey Pollock, 44, and her daughter Extase Pollock,22, staged a car accident on Calhoun Drive involving a U-Haul van rented by the Pollocks and another vehicle containing Goodman, Washington and a juvenile.
The parties in both vehicles claimed not to know the others.
An investigation by the N.C. State Department of Insurance revealed the women had communicated by phone in the hours before the accident.
The other accident Goodman pleaded in happened Dec. 4, 2015.
Pollock pleaded guilty in the U-haul case in October and was sentenced to 1.8 to 3.8 years in prison.
In April, Goodman's mother, Doris Canty, 63, was found guilty at trial of staging other accidents -- some of which Goodman was involved in, Wilmington Police Department traffic reports show. Canty was sentenced to two years of probation, with eight to 19 months in prison suspended.
Reporter F.T. Norton can be reached at 910-343-2070 or [email protected].
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