Yucaipa couple charged with causing crashes to collect insurance payouts [The Press-Enterprise]

A Yucaipa couple faces felony charges of assault with a deadly weapon, insurance fraud and child endangerment after investigators determined they deliberately caused vehicle collisions in order to collect insurance payouts and posted videos of the crashes on YouTube, authorities said this week.

Christopher Phelps, 40 and his wife, Kimberly, 40, were arrested Wednesday, March 22 following an investigation by the California Department of Insurance, according to a statement from the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office.

Christopher Phelps has been charged with six counts of assault with a deadly weapon, 11 counts of insurance fraud and five counts of child endangerment, according to the DA’s office. Kimberly Phelps has been charged with two counts of child endangerment and one count of insurance fraud.

The California Department of Insurance began investigating after San Bernardino County sheriff’s officials learned of the YouTube channel “BLU3 GHO57,” connected to Christopher Phelps, which included more than 150 dashcam videos of traffic collisions and road rage incidents, officials said.

The sheriff’s department had also been called to a crash in Yucaipa involving Phelps in February that was deemed suspicious after investigators learned Phelps appeared to stop for no reason, causing a truck pulling a trailer to rear-end his vehicle, DA’s officials said. He later posted video of that crash to his YouTube page.

Phelps was arrested following a sheriff’s investigation, but posted bail and was released, officials said.

Investigators found 23 crash videos that connected with 17 insurance claims filed by Phelps, officials said. Another 42 videos were related to road rage incidents and attempted crashes. In all, the page had 162 dashcam videos, DA’s officials said.

In some of the crashes, Phelps’ child was also in the vehicle, officials said.

The collisions range from July 2020 to February 2023, according to a felony complaint filed by the DA’s office.

Investigators reviewed hours of videos and served numerous search warrants, though further details about those warrants weren’t disclosed.

Christopher Phelps was being held in jail on $500,000 bail, according to inmate records. Kimberly Phelps was being held on $170,000 bail.

Detectives were asking any additional victims or witnesses to call Detective Matthew Carter at 909-919-2215.

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