Brooklyn men sentenced to prison for staged accidents scheme, 1 involving a Long Island victim, authorities say

A pair of Brooklyn men have been sentenced in a staged accident scheme that included a crash involving a Massapequa motorist and another that went viral after dashcam video showed the suspects cutting off a Queens woman on the Belt Parkway and then smashing into her while in reverse, prosecutors said.

The crashes are among dozens of incidents documented by Newsday in what authorities contend are a "brazen" attempt to bilk insurance companies for large payouts, often with the help of connected law firms and medical providers, officials said.

The cases are part of a growing legal and political battle over staged crashes, an increasingly sophisticated form of insurance fraud in which unsuspecting motorists can become unwitting participants in collisions designed to generate payouts. Investigators say some operations extend well beyond the people in the crashes, involving recruiters, medical providers and lawyers that can turn a deliberately caused crash into thousands of dollars in insurance payments.

 Some of the schemes have widened to involve allegedly phony falls from construction sites and slip-and-fall injuries on sidewalks, and are attracting the attention of state lawmakers, who earlier this year passed sweeping changes that cap damages and enable prosecutors to seek criminal penalties against any individual involved in the alleged fraud.

Meanwhile, state regulators have revoked the ability of at least two Long Island surgeons allegedly involved in the scheme to treat patients with workers’ compensation claims.

Newsday has — for more than a year — reported on the vast, interconnected network of lawyers, doctors and victims, often newly arrived immigrants, who authorities contend stage accidents, whether on the road, on construction sites or on city sidewalks, fabricating injuries and subjecting themselves to unnecessary surgeries to collect large payouts.

Victor Murillo, 34, the driver in three documented crashes in 2024, was sentenced Aug. 3 to 2 years in prison. He previously pleaded guilty to second-degree staging a motor vehicle accident, fourth-degree insurance fraud and fifth-degree conspiracy.

Jaime Huiracocha, 53, who allegedly served as a lookout and directed the crashes, was sentenced Monday to 1 to 3 years in prison after pleading guilty in May to third-degree insurance fraud and fifth-degree conspiracy.

Attorneys for both men did not respond to requests for comment.

At a news conference Thursday, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said prosecutors were targeting an "entire ecosystem of people" who profit from staging accidents.

"They are attorneys that help them with the insurance companies," Katz said. "They are the people in the medical field. They are individuals who faked their injuries. It's an entire ecosystem of profit."

Investigators linked Murillo and Huiracocha to at least three staged crashes in Queens and Brooklyn in 2024 and said they recruited others to participate in the scheme with promises of cash payouts.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who attended the news conference, said the State Department of Financial Services received 43,000 suspicious reports related to auto insurance fraud in 2025, an 80% increase from five years earlier.

"It's so brazen. It's so disturbing. It's so shocking that people would actually put themselves in danger and other motorists," said Hochul, who signed a series of auto insurance reform bills this year that she contends will crack down on staged accidents and lower auto insurance rates by as much as 10%.

In all three incidents — each of which were documented on the victims' dashboard cameras — Murillo acted as the driver, cutting off an unsuspecting motorist and then suddenly, and deliberately, slamming on the brakes, causing the vehicle behind him to strike the car he was driving, prosecutors said. Huiracocha, in a separate vehicle, directed Murillo on when and how to stage the collisions, Katz said.

In an Oct. 16, 2024, collision recorded by dashcam that quickly went viral on social media, video shows the car behind Murillo braking in time to avoid a collision, after which Murillo puts his car in reverse and slams into that vehicle, causing a crash on the Belt Parkway in Rosedale near the Valley Stream border, authorities said. 

Murillo then climbed into the front passenger seat — a tactic prosecutors said he used in all three incidents — although his actions were obscured by the backseat passengers, who covered the rear window with a black tarp, prosecutors said. Immediately after the crash, Murillo is seen exiting the car and jumping into a waiting red Kia, which then flees from the scene.

Nearly two months earlier, on Aug. 24, a 47-year-old woman from Massapequa was westbound on the Belt Parkway near the Erskine Street exit in Brooklyn when a silver Honda Civic driven by Murillo merged into her lane directly in front of her and stopped, leading to a collision, prosecutors said. Murillo then fled the scene in a getaway car while the remaining occupants of Murillo’s car exited the Honda feigning injuries, authorities said.

Those occupants, who have also pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing, were then directed by Huiracocha to visit certain medical clinics for treatment in Queens, authorities said.

In each case, the crew submitted claims to Allstate Insurance, including an injury claim for more than $79,000, prosecutors previously said.

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.