Mass. AG's Office: 1 Broken Tooth Cost $36K in Fake Claims
Over four years, a Massachusetts man allegedly collected some $36,000 by making repeated claims against restaurants over the same broken tooth.
Now, after an investigation by the state attorney general’s office, Tod Schaffer is facing dozens of criminal charges that could, at least in theory, put him in prison for decades, according to the Boston Globe.
Schaffer, 42, was arraigned yesterday in Suffolk Superior Court on 19 counts of insurance fraud and ten counts of larceny over $250, and released on his own recognizance, the newspaper writes. Each count carries a maximum five-year term.
After legitimately breaking a tooth on a piece of plastic in a restaurant salad and collecting for the injury, Schaffer allegedly never had it fixed, Instead, he is accused of making 21 false claims over the tooth, 10 of which were paid, between 2002 and 2006, the Globe reports.
Although Shaffer reportedly used aliases, an insurance investigator first noticed several instances of the claimed scam because the same tooth was involved, the newspaper writes. After the investigator alerted the attorney general’s office, the probe eventually was expanded.
Shaffer’s lawyer, Robert Allen Jr., says he knows his client personally and describes him as a good man, but declines to comment on the case specifically.
