were arraigned in July 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cStaged auto collisions not only terrify the drivers who are targeted, they put other motorists at risk and ultimately lead to increased insurance costs for all New Yorkers,\u201d Katz said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said the two men would recruit people to participate in car crashes by promising them thousands of dollars in payouts.<\/p>\n
Murillo drove the cars during the crashes, according to prosecutors, and would slam on the brakes in a deliberate attempt to get rear-ended. In one case, when the driver was able to stop before hitting him, he threw the car in reverse and backed into the driver, according to authorities.<\/p>\n
After the crashes, Murillo would exit the car through the passenger side and the remaining passengers would feign being injured, officials said.<\/p>\n
Huiracocha trailed Murillo in a separate vehicle, telling him when and how to stage the crashes, prosecutors said. Afterward, he would direct the passengers to go to specific medical clinics, according to officials.<\/p>\n
The crashes happened between August and October 2024 on the Belt Parkway near Erskine Street, the Nassau Expressway near Cross Bay Boulevard, and the Belt Parkway in Rosedale. One of the victims helped crack the case open with footage from her dashcam.<\/p>\n
In one incident, an insurance adjuster received personal injury claims totaling more than $79,000, according to officials.<\/p>\n
Two other defendants have also pleaded guilty and are due for sentencing next month.<\/p>\n
During the announcement about the sentences, Hochul highlighted reforms aimed at reducing insurance costs, including allowing prosecutors to charge the organizers of these sorts of crashes, not just the drivers, and narrowing the definition of \u201cserious injury.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you stage crashes, try to defraud or endanger New Yorkers, you will be held accountable,\u201d the governor said. \u201cThis kind of reckless, illegal behavior has been driving up auto insurance costs for millions of New Yorkers for far too long. By cracking down, we\u2019re not just getting dangerous criminals off our roads, we\u2019re putting money back into the pockets of everyday drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Brooklyn men were sentenced for staging three car crashes on New York City highways as part of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-331271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}