Largest Automobile Accident Fraud Ring Ever Charged In New York

According to the complaint, Quentin Hawkins has by his own admission been staging accidents for more than twenty years. As a "front" for his staged accident business and other corrupt activities outlined in the complaint, including bribery of several city employees, Hawkins held himself out to be a private investigator operating in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The automobile accident fraud scheme charged today worked in two ways. In the first scenario, two cars generally driven by knowing participants in the scheme deliberately collided, and the drivers called the police who filed accident reports based on the false information provided to them. The complaint charges seven of these "staged accidents," and others are under investigation. In one such accident, claimed to have occurred on November 1, 1999, at the corner of Clarendon Road and East 39th Street in Brooklyn, Rodney Hawkins, a corrupt police officer from the 70th Precinct in Brooklyn, allowed his own car to be used. There, two cars deliberately collided, but caused little damage. After inspecting the damage, the two drivers decided to collide again, and only then did they notify the police. Quentin Hawkins and his co-conspirators referred in telephone conversations to these staged accidents as "movies," and the cars slated for participation in these "movies" as "cans."

In the second scenario, Police Officer Rodney Hawkins fabricated accident reports for Quentin Hawkins in exchange for bribes. In these cases there is no evidence that the accidents were even staged. Seven accidents where Rodney Hawkins filed an accident report, involving a total of 37 people claiming to have been in the cars at the time of the "accidents," are charged in the complaint as having been fabricated for the purpose of fraud, and another four mentioned in the complaint are currently being investigated.