Oakland auto glass workers charged with fraud in insurance billing

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The proprietor and three employees of a national car glass company based in Oakland have got been charged in federal tribunal with conspiring to overcharge coverage companies by inflating bills to demo that more than expensive windscreens had been installed in cars.

Mehrdad "Tony" Hakimian, the proprietor of Glass Department Store of Marin Inc., directed his employees at his business' Occident Oakland central office and at its subsidiaries, Glass Pro and Glass Masters, to electronically revize bills before they were submitted to coverage companies for processing and payment, according to a criminal ailment filed in U.S. District Court in Oakland.

"Make certain you develop them like I desire it done, to set in a inexpensive portion and measure for a more than expensive part," Hakimian told a former regional manager, the ailment said.

Hakimian, 46, of Factory Valley; and employees Emma DeGuzman of Union City, Aldy Antonio of San Leandro and Bobby Guinto of Oakland are to be arraigned Wednesday before U.S. Judge John Wayne Federative Republic Of Brazil in Oakland on complaints of confederacy to perpetrate wire fraud and wire fraud.

The suspects allegedly falsified bills to reflect that a more than expensive windscreen or other hardware had been installed when in fact they had not, Federal Bureau of Investigation Particular Agent William Leoni wrote in an affidavit filed in court.

Investigators believe that the suspects were responsible for the majority of some 5,900 deceitful invoices, totaling more than than $586,000 in potentially inflated costs billed to and paid by as many as 86 coverage companies, including State Farm, Allstate, Nationwide and Farmers Insurance, the affidavit said.

Hakimian have been in concern for 14 old age and runs 75 stores in 22 states, according to his Web land site ( ).

Reached Saturday at the glass company's central office on Occident Thousand Avenue in Oakland, Guinto said, "I have got no remark on that." The other suspects and their lawyers could not be reached or did not react to petitions for remark Saturday.

The FBI's probe began in 2005 when a confidential beginning who worked at a Glass Edgar Lee Masters store came forward with paperwork screening 10 illustrations of charge irregularities, according to Leoni.

Respective territory directors with Glass Edgar Lee Masters appeared to have got anterior cognition of the scam, and one just shrugged his shoulders and said, "I know, they'll acquire in problem for it one day" when asked about it by the source, Leoni wrote.

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and U.S. Postal Service inspectors searched Hakimian's central office in December 2006 and learned that it maintained a computerised charge system that contained elaborate information from bills generated at local shops, according to the affidavit.

Government visually inspected a figure of autos that had windscreens replaced at Bay Area stores operated by Hakimian. In some cases, the revised bills falsely stated that the windscreen contained a specialised solar tinting or was equipped with a rainfall sensor, Leoni wrote.

Hakimian encouraged clients to register a claim with their coverage company, instead of paying cash, so that he could blow up invoices, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said. As an inducement to acquire clients to register claims, Hakimian instructed his subdivision directors to offer to relinquish the customer's coverage deductible, according to the FBI.

E-mail Henry K. Spike Lee at .