A half-dozen NYPD employees, including a current Bronx cop, were busted by the feds for their alleged roles in a multimillion-dollar insurance fraud operation targeting car crash victims from “the hood,” officials said.
Police Officer Yaniris Deleon was arrested in Manhattan Wednesday, along with five 911 operators — Makkah Shabazz, Kortnei Williams, Shakeema Foster, Latifah Abdul-Khaliq and Angela Meyers — for allegedly accepting bribes for confidential info on car crash victims, according to authorities.
The alleged ringleader — Anthony Rose, aka Todd Chambers — paid out thousands of dollars in bribes for the “leads” and gave the protected patient info to insurance scammers who would then steer the victims to a specific network of doctors and lawyers in New York and New Jersey for unneeded treatments, according to court papers.
The scheme, which was based out of a call center in Queens and targeted people in “the hood,” netted more than $18 million bilking insurance companies, the court papers say.
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“The hood is number one. Tell her all that Manhattan s–t, those people got attorneys we need all the hood cases. Bronx hood. The top-tier shit is all the hood,” Rose said, according to court papers.
The scam artist callers would often tell victims they were associated with the NYPD and got their phone number from a “Personal Injury Hotline” created to protect victims from criminals getting their info “illegally and mislead them into medical [clinics].”
The scheme started sometime in 2014, court papers say.
Deleon and the 911 operators were among 27 people, including nurses, in the $18 million scheme that compromised about 60,000 people’s information, court papers say.
The NYPD employees and others working in federally funded hospitals were paid out as much as $4,000 a month for “leads” on patients’ contact info, according to the indictment.
Rose and 911 operators were arraigned Thursday in the Manhattan federal court on charges of conspiracy to violate the travel act, solicitation of bribes and gratuities and wrongful disclosure of individually identifiable health care information, sources told The Post.
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Deleon, who shook in court as she appeared uncuffed and wearing a GAP sweatshirt, pleaded not guilty through her attorney and was cut loose on $50,000 bond.
“She’s (Deleon) has been a hardworking law enforcement officer for a number of years,” her attorney, Guy Oksenhendler, said after her court appearance. “Most of the charges in the indictment have nothing to do with her.”
The NYPD employees were all suspended, according to a department spokesman.
“There is no place for corruption within the NYPD,” said NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill. “By tarnishing the shield, as well as their sacred oaths, these employees will be held the highest account the law provides.”