Leads elusive in auto insurance fraud case

Bill Gang

Thursday, Sept. 24, 1998 | 10:53 a.m.

Deputy Attorney General Janalee Murray said she is tired of having what she calls "The Coyote Case" hanging around unresolved.

The two defendants -- former Boulder City residents Daniel James Erickson, 33, and Rory Griffin Graham, 35 -- were indicted in May but are still on the loose and she admits there are no good leads in the case.

The two are charged with using multiple identities and multiple phony auto titles for the same car to obtain multiple auto insurance policies. A few days later, the car was intentionally wrecked and claims for the same damages were made on each of the insurance policies, according to the indictment.

The favored story, Murray said, is that the collision with a guardrail or light pole was caused when the driver swerved to avoid a coyote -- hence the nickname.

Since the collisions in the scam do not involve other vehicles, police reports are seldom, if ever, made and the insurance companies usually just write a check to cover the damage.

In the fraud charges, Murray said Erickson and Graham are said to have walked off with $23,000 in insurance compensation for damage to a 1993 Lexus they had purchased at an auction for $15,000.

Murray said that claims for an additional $24,000 on some of the five insurance policies they had obtained were denied because the damage to the vehicle didn't match the defendants' versions of events.

The indictment, according to a news release from the attorney general's office, was the result of an 18-month investigation by investigators of the National Insurance Crime Bureau, the Special Investigative Units of Allstate, Progressive, Nevada General and Farmer Group Insurance companies and the attorney general's office.

"The extensive investigation revealed Erickson and Graham had multiple vehicles, policies and accidents in Nevada, California and Georgia," the release stated.

While the bulk of the indictment deals with the Lexus, Murray said the racketeering count opens the door to a variety of information about what she termed "a common scheme" that resulted in bogus claims of more than $187,000 being paid out between April and July 1997.

There were four other cars and numerous claims made on Nevada and California insurance policies, said the lawyer who works in the attorney general's insurance fraud division.

"It's their business," Murray said.

She noted the defendants used authentic identifications -- albeit in phony names -- that had been obtained in Nevada, California, Florida and New Jersey. The valid titles to the cars were altered with White-Out and a copying machine to reflect ownership in the false names.

Armed with those documents and paying in cash, Murray said, it was easy to get an insurance company to write a policy that would cover the vehicle for a month or two.

After the alleged accidents a few days later and collection of the resulting claims, payments on the policies invariably would stop and the insurance companies would cancel the coverage, she explained.

The names used by Graham included Daevon Lyons and Trevor Johnson and Erickson used the name Kevin Gonzales.

Murray said Graham had been in prison in New Jersey on fraud-related charges and Erickson is wanted in California for violating his probation on a theft conviction.

The news release stated "the fraud (in Nevada) was revealed when a local insurance agency employee recognized Erickson when he returned to her office and attempted to purchase additional car insurance under a different name."