The Dirty World of Staged Trucking Accidents
On November 10, 2020, a New Orleans personal injury attorney, Danny Patrick Keating, Jr. became the 33rd defendant charged in an ongoing investigation by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana into crime rings that stage accidents with tractor-trailers and commercial carriers.
The ongoing federal investigation into staged accidents has resulted in charges against 33 people over the past year for intentionally staging automobile accidents with tractor-trailers and other commercial carriers in order to defraud trucking companies and insurance companies. To date, eleven of the 33 indicted defendants have tendered guilty pleas in federal court.
The criminal indictments state that the so-called “slammers” target tractor-trailers that are changing lanes in order to cause an accident by striking a tractor-trailer in its blind spot, using the slammer vehicle. The accidents are usually staged at night to avoid witnesses. After a staged accident, the slammer usually exits the slammer vehicle from the passenger side in order to avoid being seen. The remaining passengers then call 911 and one of the passengers falsely claims to have been the driver at the time of the staged accident.
The indictments state that the staged accident cases were referred to specific attorney(s) and that the attorney(s) paid defendants to stage accidents.
One indictment states that defendants “were purportedly treated by doctors who are known to the Grand Jury at the direction of Attorney A” and that one defendant had neck surgery “because Attorney A told her she would get more money through the lawsuit if she had the surgery.”
Last month, one of the indicted defendants charged with staging over 50 accidents, Cornelius Garrison (“Garrison”), was shot and killed in his apartment on September 24, 2020, less than two weeks before he was scheduled to be arraigned on October 5, 2020. Prior to his murder, Garrison allegedly had been cooperating with the F.B.I. and the United States Attorney’s office. Sources familiar with the case, who spoke with the press on the condition of anonymity, said investigators were examining the possibility that his killing was a hit meant to silence a witness. Notably, Garrison was the third “slammer” involved in the federal investigation into staged accidents to die.
