Loading summary
Transcript71 lines
- [00:00]
Jake Brennan
Do you know what went down at the Viper Room the night River Phoenix died? Or how about the mysterious death of Brittany Murphy? Are you aware of how Steve McQueen escaped murder at the hands of the Manson family? The obsessive killing of Dorothy Stratton? The real life murder that inspired David Lynch's Twin Peaks? The three conspiracies surrounding Marilyn Monroe's death. These stories and more are told in the Hollywoodland podcast, where true crime and Tinseltown collide. Hollywoodland is hosted by me, Jake Brennan, creator of the award winning true crime podcast Disgraceland. Follow and listen to Hollywoodland wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:40]
Nick Arnold
My family and I do everything we can to keep our cats healthy and active. We buy them new toys and tasty treats. We schedule regular checkups with the vet, and a few months ago we swapped out their old litter for a new one. Pretty Litter actually, it's not just litter, it's also a tool we use to monitor their health. Pretty Litter changes color based on what's going on in your cat's urine, so it can help detect issues early by showing abnormalities in acidity, alkalinity, and even the presence of blood. That color changing feature total peace of mind for my family. Plus it ships free right to my door. It's non toxic, super low dust, controls odor like a champ, and one bag lasts an entire month. It's hard to know if our cats really appreciate what we do for them, but my daughter thinks they love their new litter. The color, the freshness, the lack of clumps and dust.
- [01:34]
Unknown
We've tried dozens of different litters over.
- [01:36]
Nick Arnold
The years and Pretty Litter is the best so far. Right now, save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy at PrettyLitter.com GoneSouth that's PrettyLitter.com GoneSouth to save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy. Pretty Litter.com GoneSouth Pretty Litter cannot detect every feline health issue or prevent or diagnose diseases. A diagnosis can only come from a licensed veterinarian. Terms and conditions apply. See site for details. Tell me your name and where you work and what you do.
- [02:18]
My name is Nick Arnold. I'm a defense attorney in transportation and insurance in New Orleans, and I've been here in practice since 2008.
- [02:27]
Nick Arnold has spent much of his career representing trucking companies and insurance carriers. He handles lawsuits involving accidents, injury claims, and insurance fraud. His first decade as a lawyer was fairly uneventful, but around 2017, he and other defense attorneys in his circle began Hearing about a motor vehicle scam being perpetrated on the roadways of Orleans parish.
- [02:51]
I think they were first called the truck stop cases.
- [02:54]
Here's how it worked. The scammer would park on the shoulder of a service road near a truck stop, waiting for a tractor trailer to roll through a stop sign. As soon as it did, they'd pull in front of it, causing a low speed crash that made the trucker look like the one at fault. The scammer would then file an insurance claim and cash in. Such scams were not unheard of, and they were relatively low stakes. But what got Nick's attention was a variant of the truck stop cases, One with much larger consequences for his clients. In this one, cars full of people were thought to be intentionally slamming into 18 wheelers on the interstate itself.
- [03:36]
The truck would be traveling in the traveling lane on the interstate. The passenger vehicle full of the stage accident plaintiffs, would be in the adjacent passing lane, attempting to overtake the truck. And they would make a sideswipe connection with the truck and the skirt of the vehicle.
- [03:51]
At that point, the driver of a third vehicle, also in on the scam, would flag the trucker down and inform him that he had just sideswiped somebody's car.
- [04:01]
So on that accident report, you've got like five or six people saying this accident occurred because the truck left the lane and sideswiped the passenger vehicle. And you've got one truck driver saying, I didn't do it. I didn't even feel it. That doesn't look good from a liability standpoint. And so the weight of evidence would indicate to a trucking company and their insurance carrier that this is a case we should probably settle because fault is very likely on our truck driver.
- [04:24]
The scam had been allowed to persist in part because its victims, namely the trucking companies and their insurers, were scattered across different states. Most didn't know each other, and each saw only one suspicious crash. But local defense attorneys like Nick Arnold started seeing the same scenario play out along Interstate 10, a busy commercial trucking corridor that cuts straight across south Louisiana. That gave them a clearer view of the pattern and a reason to sound the alarm. In doing so, these attorneys helped expose a sprawling criminal conspiracy built around staged crashes and bogus injury claims. A scheme that generated millions of dollars for the people behind it. But bringing the conspiracy to light would come at a price. It would trigger federal indictments, pull in prominent attorneys, and even get someone killed. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is gone south. I've been following the story of the staged trucking accidents in New Orleans for years. But I've held off doing an episode about them for a couple reasons. First, the story isn't over yet. Two co conspirators have pleaded not guilty, and they're expected to go to trial this fall. As a result, the people at the center of the story, FBI agents, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and other scam participants, have been unable to speak publicly. I figured I'd wait until after the trial to cover it. But a few months ago, I got an email from a woman who works for a national charter bus company. The company was a victim of the staged accidents. She couldn't talk, but she suggested I speak with an attorney she knew who had some inside knowledge of the case. That's how I met Nick arnold. Nick told me that staged accidents have always been around in one form or another, but the vast majority of them were one offs. A couple guys with an idea to make a quick buck.
- [06:22]
I can remember a case when two individuals sat in their camaro waiting on a one way street, just waiting for a vehicle to turn down the wrong way. And when they saw the dump truck that we were representing turn down the wrong way, the dump truck sees he's in the wrong direction on one way, starts to back up, and the camaro speeds up and hits the truck. Because the narrative's going to be that truck was going the wrong way on a one way street. Of course they were at fault.
- [06:48]
But what Nick and other attorneys in the trucking space started hearing about was something different. These weren't one offs. This was organized, methodical, and run like a business with a playbook designed to maximize insurance payouts.
- [07:03]
So it doesn't really help to stage an accident against another passenger vehicle. You would want a commercial vehicle with million dollar policy minimum, if not excess of many millions of dollars, which most motor carriers have. And then if you're staging an accident, why put one person in the vehicle when you can stack it with three or four? That's just one stop. Shopping on a big policy limit for multiple injuries that you can pursue in one fell swoop.
- [07:28]
The organizers of the staged accidents focused on the i10 corridor because that's where all the commercial vehicles are. And they focused on Orleans parish Because juries there tend to be more sympathetic to injury claims and more likely to award large settlements than in more conservative rural parishes.
- [07:46]
So if you were to go to certain rural parishes in Louisiana where there are very conservative jury pools, you don't want to stage an accident there because your likelihood of recovery of large Amounts of money is very slim, but in Orleans parish, it typically is considered the most liberal jury pool in the state in terms of civil verdicts.
- [08:04]
Defense attorneys like Nick Arnold were the canaries in the coal mine. They spotted the scam before anyone else realized how big it was. By 2018, they began sharing what they knew with insurance adjusters because, you know.
- [08:17]
A lot of these adjusters might have a case in New Orleans or Shreveport or Houston, but these defense attorneys in New Orleans have all these New Orleans cases. So they have the benefit of repetitive factual scenarios that an adjuster in Iowa or Connecticut's not going to see. So with the permission of these adjusters and these insurance companies and trucking companies, they began to share information kind of informally.
- [08:42]
To be clear, a number of trucking companies and their insurers had suspected some of the crashes they were paying out on had been staged. But the evidence seemed so convincing that most chose to settle rather than fight the cases in court. That changed when the defense attorneys started uncovering signs of a broader conspiracy. As a result, the companies began pushing back. They refused to settle with the plaintiff's attorneys, that is, the attorneys representing the so called victims of the crash. The companies began demanding depositions and putting the crashes under a microscope.
- [09:17]
The plaintiff attorneys are starting to feel the heat where you're not getting a penny from us. We will spend every penny this company has making sure you don't get any money. And that became to really frustrate the plaintiff's attorneys. And so they're defending these depositions now. Where previously they might depose one person in the vehicle or two people, now everyone's being deposed. And it's making it harder and harder for these attorneys to get the money out of these cases that were supposed to be slam dunks.
- [09:44]
Many of the stage accident lawsuits were filed by the same personal injury firms and attorneys, which suggested they were in on the scam. But evidence uncovered through depositions and discovery revealed just how complicit they really were. Phone records and text messages showed that certain accident attorneys and organizers spoke to one another in code.
- [10:05]
They would refer to things such as fishing. We have great saltwater fishing here in Louisiana. Redfish is a delicacy. And they would speak in terms of fishing. Hey, I'm going fishing today. Would you like any redfish or any trout? Redfish was usually, you know, an accident with a truck versus trout or some other fish would be like with another passenger vehicle.
- [10:24]
Nick and others referred to some of the crash organizers as slammers because they were the ones who drove the cars that slammed into tractor trailers flying down the highway at 70 or 80 miles per hour. Of course, if you slam into enough tractor trailers, it stops looking like you're a bad driver and starts looking like you're staging those accidents for the insurance money. Which is why, as Nick learned from depositions, slammers would slip away immediately after impact. A passenger would then slip behind the wheel and pretend to have been the driver all along. Certain personal injury attorneys paid the slammers to recruit passengers, knowing that more people in a crash meant a bigger insurance payout Afterwards. The slammer would pay each passenger around 1,000 bucks in cash. But if the passengers were good at faking injuries, they could make a lot more. Nick learned that some of them even underwent unnecessary back or neck surgeries just to inflate the medical claims. Needless to say, he found all of this super disturbing.
- [11:25]
Yeah, I thought the insanity of putting yourself in a vehicle that's sometimes lower than the truck itself and throwing yourself into that truck with the hope of $1,000 at a burger King after the accident, you know, at the risk of dying and killing four other people, that just from a very pure, violent risk standpoint, bothered me.
- [11:44]
But what bothered Nick more was the involvement of attorneys. People who should have been protecting the system, not gaming it for profit. As more accident cases went to trial instead of settling, the full scale of the conspiracy came into view. From what Nick could tell, it involved dozens of staged crashes, hundreds of participants, and multiple law firms all seemingly competing for a piece of the action. The most prolific slammers knew their value. They began shopping around, cutting deals with whichever attorneys offered the biggest payouts. In the process, they widened the web of co conspirators, increasing the chances that the whole scheme would fall apart.
- [12:25]
They started to feel that heat that they weren't feeling in the first few years, from 2014 to about 2017. In 2018, the heat turns up. There's a lot more players. There's a lot more people who can exact some greed in the situation, who can form alliances or turn on each other.
- [12:42]
For Nick Arnold, it seemed like only a matter of time before the feds got involved. In 2018, they did. Just wrapped another chilling case or unsolved mystery. Give your brain a break and keep the thrill going with Chumba Casino, your online social casino where fun's just a click away. Play slots, blackjack, and live casino games, all without downloads or pressure. Sign up to claim your free welcome bonus, plus daily login rewards to keep the excitement rolling. Chumba Casino. When the case is closed, the Real fun begins. No purchase necessary. VGW Group voidware prohibited by law 21 TNCs apply.
- [13:32]
David Spade
Hey, what's up flies? This is David Spade. Dana Carvey. Look at. I know we never actually left, but I'll just say it. We are back with another season of Fly on the Wall. Every episode, including ones with guests, will now be on video. Every Thursday, you'll hear us and see us chatting with big name celebrities. And every Monday, you're stuck with just me and Dana. We react to news, what's trending, viral clips follow and listen to Fly on the Wall everywhere you get your podcasts.
- [14:01]
Unknown
Thanks for selling your car to Carvana. Here's your check.
- [14:04]
Nick Arnold
Whoa.
- [14:04]
When did I get here?
- [14:05]
Unknown
What do you mean?
- [14:06]
Nick Arnold
I swear it was just moments ago.
- [14:07]
Jake Brennan
That I accepted a great offer from Carvana online. I must have time traveled to the future.
- [14:12]
Unknown
It was just moments ago. We do same day pickup. Here's your check for that great offer.
- [14:16]
It is the future.
- [14:18]
It's. It's the present and just the convenience of Carvana. Sorry to blow your mind.
- [14:22]
Nick Arnold
It's all good.
- [14:23]
Jake Brennan
Happens all the time.
- [14:25]
Unknown
Sell your car the convenient way to Carvana. Pickup times may vary and fees may apply.
- [14:38]
Nick Arnold
At some point in 2018, the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in New Orleans quietly opened an investigation into the rash of staged trucking accidents in the region. They gave it a code name, Operation Sideswipe. Agents began working in the background, poring over accident reports and cultivating insiders who were willing to talk. This resulted in the first of what would be many federal indictments to come. Five people were indicted last month in a federal fraud case. They were accused of staging an accident with an 18 wheeler in New Orleans east, then collecting money in a lawsuit. The first people indicted were primarily passengers and low level organizers. To Nick Arnold, these defendants represented low hanging fruit people whom the feds had approached and said, look, you're low in totem pole.
- [15:27]
You settled your case for $100,000. You went home with $30,000 after expenses and attorney's fees. We know what you did. We want you to cooperate and tell us who got you involved. Right? So that's classic federal investigation.
- [15:41]
Confronted with the evidence, many of these low level defendants flipped almost immediately. They pleaded guilty and agreed to testify rather than risk almost certain defeat at trial. Nick Arnold was encouraged by these developments. It suggested that the high level operators, the slammers and attorneys would be next. The first major breakthrough came just a few months later when a personal injury attorney named Danny Patrick Keating Jr. Was indicted.
- [16:09]
Unknown
Danny Keating Faces charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. He's the first lawyer charged in the wide ranging FBI probe now dubbed Operation Sideswipe.
- [16:22]
Nick Arnold
Keating was charged with conspiring to stage 31 tractor trailer accidents over a two year span. He settled 17 of those cases, collecting more than $350,000 in legal fees. Court records show him giving one of the slammers a $15,000 cashier's check money to buy a car for the next staged crash. Keating was the first attorney ensnared by Operation Sideswipe. Like the lower level defendants before him, he flipped. Rather than face terrible odds at trial.
- [16:55]
Patrick Keating comes to the table and says, look, I'm the first cooperator on the train. I'm going to get the best seat. And he admitted to staging over 30 commercial accidents after being indicted. He clearly cooperated with the feds in the indictment and his sentencing was set.
- [17:12]
At the time of Keating's arrest, the indictments had not referred to any other attorneys or high level conspirators by name, but they had referred to them by letter. For example, the first indictment referenced an attorney B. It also mentioned a co conspirator A. But while they might not have been named, it wasn't hard to figure out who they were. Co conspirator A was described as a disbarred former attorney who owned a litigation finance company and had political connections in Louisiana. For Nick and his attorney friends, this pointed to one man, Sean Alfortish.
- [17:50]
Sean had been practicing as a lawyer in New Orleans since the 90s. And he was a, by all means, a very competent lawyer, a good trial lawyer. He had some success in the early 2000s where he came into a good bit of money. And as when people come into a lot of money, they find new wealthy hobbies. And one of his was horse racing. And here in New Orleans, associated with the fairgrounds, there was a horsemen association. He desperately wanted to be the head of that organization. And there was votes being cast throughout the country by members of the association to elect and he was found to be tampering with votes in the mail system to get himself elected. And that might be the most vain way to become a felon, because, I don't know, maybe there's some financial incentive behind being the Horsemen's association chairman or president, but he got pinched for that and he did time in federal prison and lost his bar license as a result of permanent disbarment.
- [18:45]
It sounds absurd, but yes, Sean L. Fordish rigged the election of the Louisiana Horsemen's Association. He and Some cronies had mailed in fake ballots, using members Social Security numbers to tilt the vote in his favor. While he was at it, he siphoned off the group's medical benefits fund and used it to pay for lavish trips and gifts. Sean was sentenced to nearly four years in prison and ordered to pay over $100,000 in restitution. When he was released in 2015, he wasn't allowed to practice law, but he'd spent his entire career in the legal world. It's what he knew. So he pivoted into litigation finance. I admit, when I hear the words litigation finance, my brain starts to shut down. But it's worth explaining because it played a key role in the staged accident scheme. In short, litigation finance is when a company gives someone money to help cover the cost of a lawsuit, usually a personal injury case. In exchange, the company takes a portion of whatever money that person wins in court or receives in a settlement. It's kind of like a loan, but with a key difference. If the case is lost, the person doesn't have to pay anything back. The funder only gets paid if there's a payout. Litigation finance companies made the staged accident scam possible. Without the upfront cash they provided, the crash participants couldn't have afforded to hire lawyers or to pay for medical treatment to make their injuries look legit. Some litigation finance companies were duped into backing the fake accident claims. But others, like Sean Alfortich's, weren't just funding the scam. They were part of it. For years, Nick Arnold had heard whispers that Sean Alfortish was knee deep in the staged accident scam. Some even claimed he recruited participants himself right off the street.
- [20:39]
He had the unique ability to communicate across socioeconomic classes and connect with people on a common problem, whatever that might be. And again, he was a trial lawyer before he was a felon. And so he was able to connect with a jury. He was able to connect with those people on the street. So he was able to find people who had, I say nothing to lose, but to get in a car. I'll make sure you get $601,000 to get in this accident. And, you know, if we treat your injuries, then you come into a lot more money.
- [21:07]
Sean L. Fordish was referred to as co conspirator A in one of the indictments. That same indictment also mentioned an attorney B. This individual's identity was no secret either. The indictment described attorney B as a female lawyer operating a law firm that took referrals from staged accidents and worked with a group of co conspirators, reporters and local attorneys who followed the case knew exactly who this individual was. Sean Alfortish may have been a character, but Attorney B was in a league of her own.
- [21:43]
Vanessa Mata
Ready to level up? Champa Casino is your playbook to fun. It's free to play with no purchase necessary. Enjoy hundreds of online social games like blackjack, slots and solitaire anytime, anywhere with fresh releases every week. Whether you are at home or on the go. Let Chumba Casino bring the excitement to you. Plus get free daily login bonuses and a free welcome bonus. Join now for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. Play Chumba Casino today. No purchase necessary. VGW Group Void board prohibited by law 21/TNCs apply.
- [22:13]
Unknown
If you're an experienced pet owner, you already know that having a pet is 25% belly rubs, 25% yelling drop it. And 50% groaning at the bill from every pet visit. Which is why Lemonade Pet Insurance is tailor made for your pet and can save you up to 90% on vet bills. It can help cover checkups and emergencies, diagnostics, basically all the stuff that makes your bank account get nervous. Claims are filed super easily through the Lemonade app and half get settled instantly. Get a'@lemonade.com pet and they'll help cover the vet bill for whatever your pet swallowed after you yelled drop it.
- [22:51]
Nick Arnold
She fights for what you deserve.
- [22:54]
She knows all all about pain.
- [23:00]
In the spring of 2020, a provocative commercial began airing on local TV stations in the New Orleans area. The commercial cuts between scenes pulled from what look like low budget action movies. In one, an explosion inside an office building sends a man and a woman crashing to the floor. In another, a woman in workout gear tumbles painfully down the bleachers of what seems to be a high school football stadium. It's only halfway through the commercial that you realize what it's about.
- [23:30]
Stuntwoman turned bad Attorney Ladies and gentlemen, Vanessa Mata. When you need legal action, send her in.
- [23:42]
By the time the commercial aired, drivers in New Orleans would have already recognized personal injury attorney Vanessa Mata from her billboards posted along the city's highways. Her phone number, 504500 Payne, was easy to remember, as was her tagline, send her in. The attorney B mentioned in the indictment, this was Vanessa Mata, and she was no stranger to defense attorneys like Nick Arnold.
- [24:08]
Vanessa Mata in a prior life had been a dancer and had become a stunt woman. We had a lot of movie filming, various opportunities for her in Louisiana, known as Hollywood South. That career ran its course. She stopped being A stuntwoman and entered law school at Loyola here in New Orleans. And she graduated and passed the bar.
- [24:33]
Vanessa first caught Nick's attention around 2018. Typically, it takes personal injury attorneys years to build a steady stream of cases through advertising, networking, and word of mouth. But Vanessa had amassed a huge volume of injury cases within just a year or two of graduating law school. Yes, her ads were eye catching, but that didn't explain her success. The following year, Nick tried a case against Vanessa. Her courtroom demeanor left a memorable impression.
- [25:01]
Talking to her was a maddening experience. I could be saying very obvious things, facts that no one should be disputing, and she would dispute them for the sake of disputing them, Talking to the point of arguing about what time of day it is. And it was so not credible that even the presiding judge in the case was just entirely fed up with her and her client defying court orders. Her clients were put in contempt numerous times for very simple things that they should be doing in the litigation. That, I mean, elementary stuff.
- [25:30]
By then, Nick and others in the local defense bar knew that Vanessa Mata was dating disbarred attorney Sean Alfortish. The rumor was that Sean was the real force behind her massive caseload, that he was funneling fraudulent personal injury claims, including staged accidents, to her through his litigation finance company. It wasn't clear how much money the couple was making, but Nick and others estimated it could be in the millions. Sean and Vanessa's pseudonymous appearance in the original indictment confirmed what Nick had long suspected, that they were at the core of the staged accident scam. As word of the staged accident spread through the Gulf Coast's trucking and insurance industries, clients began flooding Nick Arnold with calls. Many had settled cases in the past and were only now realizing those accidents had likely been staged. Nick remembers one client in particular. A year or two earlier, they'd settled a suspicious seeming accident claim with a New Orleans man named Cornelius Garrison.
- [26:32]
And they always had a bad feeling about it being a staged accident, but it was settled without their consent by the insurance company, and it bothered them continuously. And when they heard more about stage accidents, they said, what can we do about this? And I said, well, you can get in touch with the FBI. And I knew the prosecutor in charge of the stage accident cases at the time made contact with him. He put me in touch with the chief investigator, and off he went with my client to get all of the canceled checks, all the information that they had, statements, things like that, and they began to build a good case against Cornelius Garrison from what Nick Arnold knew.
- [27:08]
Cornelius Garrison was another key figure in the staged accident scheme. He was believed to be one of the more prolific slammers. The drivers who caused the crash then slipped out of the driver's seat before the cops got there. Cornelius was also suspected of recruiting and training other slammers for which he would receive a chunk of the profits if a claim paid out. Nick had seen Cornelius name pop up in a number of suspect accident claims. But word on the street was that his closest relationship was with Sean Alfortish and Vanessa Motta. Not long after Nick referred his client to the FBI. The rumor was that Cornelius may have been secretly cooperating with the feds. Eight or nine months later, Nick opened his email and found a link to a press release from the Department of Justice. It announced that Cornelius Garrison had been indicted for intentionally staging over 50 car accidents, mostly on Interstate 10. The indictment noted that Cornelius had been paid over $150,000 by co conspirator A and that this same co conspirator had referred Cornelius staged accident cases to attorney B.
- [28:18]
It was announced on maybe a Thursday that Garrison had been indicted by a federal grand jury and that he was cooperating. And he had been speaking to the grand jury for about six weeks.
- [28:30]
What was your reaction when that indictment came down?
- [28:34]
It didn't come out of the blue because I was involved in Lincoln Garrison through my client to the FBI. So I knew eventually that was going to come about. But I was excited in that it meant the next level was coming. The lawyers were coming.
- [28:48]
The indictment of Cornelius Garrison was a turning point in Operation Sideswipe. With Cornelius, the feds had flipped. Not a low level participant, but a high level organizer. Someone who clearly had relationships with personal injury attorneys like Vanessa Mata and her partner Sean Alfortish. From the indictment, it seemed obvious that Cornelius had spoken openly about those relationships and that those attorneys would be the next ones to fall. But just days after the indictment was announced, something happened that took Nick Arnold by surprise.
- [29:19]
Unknown
This is where 54 year old court Garrison was shot and killed late Tuesday night. Garrison was indicted just four days ago before he was gunned down. New Orleans police have not released many details, only that they are searching for a suspect and a motive.
- [29:35]
Nick Arnold
That's next time on Gone South. If you have information, story tips or feedback you'd like to share with the Gone south team, please email us@gonesouthpodcastmail.com that's gonesouthpodcastmail.com and for bonus content you can follow us on Facebook, TikTok and instagram @Gone Southpodcast. You can also sign up for our newsletter on substack. Gone south with Jed Lipinski Gone south is an Odyssey original podcast. It's created, written, and narrated by me, Jed Lipinski. Our executive producers are Jenna Weiss Berman, Maddie Sprung Kaiser, Tom Lipinski, Lloyd Lockridge, and me. Our story editors are Tom Lipinski, Matty Sprunkheiser, and Joel Lovell. Gone south is edited by Chris Basel and Perry Crowell. It's mixed and mastered by Chris Basel. Production support from Ian Mont and Sean Cherry. Special thanks to JD Crowley, Leah Rhys Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, and Hilary Schuff.