Attorney pleads guilty in $23M auto insurance fraud
A South Florida attorney is facing time in federal prison after he admitted his role in a $23 million auto insurance fraud linked to local chiropractors’ clinics.
Jason Dalley, 54, who lives in Boca Raton and has a personal injury and criminal defense law firm in Delray Beach, pleaded guilty on Friday to one count of conspiring to commit health care, mail and wire fraud.
Dalley admitted he was part of a profitable group of corrupt clinic owners, chiropractors and attorneys that operated mostly in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties. The fraud raked in at least $23 million from 10 auto insurance companies between 2010 and 2017, according to court records.
The attorney admitted he paid illegal kickbacks of $2,000 to $2,500 to a Broward clinic operator, tow-truck drivers and other so-called “runners” who referred clients to him, court records show.
He filed auto insurance claims on behalf of clients and received payments from auto insurance companies, according to the plea agreement. Some of the details were unclear in court records but the payments appeared to be outof-court settlements of claims on behalf of clients.
“[Dalley and others] discussed the policies of various automobile insurance carriers, including the insurance carriers with the strictest rules, and the means by which the fraud could be facilitated through those insurance companies,” prosecutors Jeffrey Kaplan and Paul Schwartz wrote in court records.
Dalley wrote more than $790,000 worth of checks from his law firm bank account to himself to pay the illegal kickbacks between 2012 and 2014, the plea agreement shows. He said he was involved in the fraud between 2012 and 2015.
Dalley, who is free on bond, is scheduled for sentencing March 16 in federal court in Fort Lauderdale. The maximum punishment is five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. Federal prosecutors have estimated Dalley was linked to about $2 million worth of fraud and he would also have to pay restitution to the victims.
Phone messages left for Dalley and his attorney, Marc Nurik, on Friday were not returned. A woman who answered Dalley’s phone said he had no comment.
The ringleaders of the fraud pleaded guilty last month to racketeering conspiracy charges.
Felix Filenger, 41, of Sunny Isles, and Andrew Rubinstein, 48, of Miami, admitted the fraud involved ripping off auto insurance providers by illegally billing for Personal Injury Protection (PIP) insurance funds under Florida’s no-fault law. Both men face up to 20 years in federal prison when they are sentenced.
Dalley, who will face disbarment because of the felony conviction, was still listed as “eligible to practice” law by the Florida Bar late Friday. Records show he was disciplined twice, receiving an admonishment and a public reprimand, in 2009 and 2012.