The Brief<\/p>\n
A San Jose man was sentenced on Friday to 60 days in jail for felony insurance fraud, felony vandalism, and misdemeanor reckless driving.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kenneth Pham Tran, 54, was found to have caused a Jan 29, 2025 collision, for which he later filed an insurance claim stating he was the victim.<\/p>\n
Dash cam footage obtained by investigators showed Tran initiated the incident by driving recklessly and brake checking a semi-truck.<\/p>\n
SAN JOSE, Calif. – A San Jose man was on Friday sentenced to 60 days in prison for felony insurance fraud stemming from a road rage incident in January of last year.<\/p>\n
Dashcam footage showed Kenneth Pham Tran, 54, initiated a road rage incident that resulted in him being rear-ended by a semi-truck, for which he later filed an insurance claim.<\/p>\n
In addition to 60 days in prison, Tran was sentenced to two years of probation and is ordered to pay over $4,000 in restitution.<\/p>\n
“Road rage doesn’t pay,” Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a press release. “Crimes like these jeopardize public safety and increase insurance costs for consumers and businesses. I applaud the work of our detectives and investigators, which is essential in protecting California drivers and holding offenders accountable.”<\/p>\n
The backstory<\/p>\n
Tran was involved in a Jan. 28 collision, which he claimed occurred when his Jeep was damaged after being rear-ended by a semi-truck while he was stopped in traffic. Tran claimed the driver of the semi refused to pull over and exchange insurance information.<\/p>\n
San Jose California Highway Patrol investigated the collision, and later referred the case to the California Department of Insurance, which conducted its own investigation.<\/p>\n
That investigation discovered a witness who placed a 911 call reporting they’d had to swerve out of the way of a Jeep that was driving recklessly and ‘brake checking’ a semi-truck on the 101 freeway in San Jose. The witness reported the driver of the jeep swerved in and out of lanes to keep the semi-truck behind the vehicle, and held the brakes several times before the semi-truck struck the back of the vehicle.<\/p>\n
The witness stated the driver of the semi-truck would not have been able to prevent the collision.<\/p>\n
The incident was captured on the semi-truck’s dashcam. Investigators obtained the footage and found evidence that Tran had initiated the crash because he felt that he’d been cut off by the semi-truck.<\/p>\n
A jury found Tran guilty of one count of felony insurance fraud, felony vandalism, and misdemeanor reckless driving.<\/p>\n
The Source<\/p>\n
California Department of Insurance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brief A San Jose man was sentenced on Friday to 60 days in jail for felony insurance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[158593,22432,63044,40418,327,158592,42187,28900,88,90,89],"class_list":["post-394479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-andy-cross","tag-california-department-of-insurance","tag-felony-vandalism","tag-insurance-fraud","tag-investigators","tag-kenneth-pham-tran","tag-reckless-driving","tag-ricardo-lara","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}