Oakland auto glass workers charged with fraud in insurance billing
The owner and three employees of a national auto glass company based in Oakland have been charged in federal court with conspiring to overcharge insurance companies by inflating invoices to show that more expensive windshields had been installed in cars.
Mehrdad "Tony" Hakimian, the owner of Glass Emporium of Marin Inc., directed his employees at his business' West Oakland headquarters and at its subsidiaries, Glass Pro and Glass Masters, to electronically revise invoices before they were submitted to insurance companies for processing and payment, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Oakland.
"Make sure you train them like I want it done, to put in a cheap part and bill for a more expensive part," Hakimian told a former regional manager, the complaint said.
Hakimian, 46, of Mill Valley; and employees Emma DeGuzman of Union City, Aldy Antonio of San Leandro and Bobby Guinto of Oakland are to be arraigned Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Wayne Brazil in Oakland on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud.
The defendants allegedly falsified invoices to reflect that a more expensive windshield or other hardware had been installed when in fact they had not, FBI Special Agent William Leoni wrote in an affidavit filed in court.
Investigators believe that the defendants were responsible for the bulk of some 5,900 fraudulent invoices, totaling more than $586,000 in potentially inflated costs billed to and paid by as many as 86 insurance companies, including State Farm, Allstate, Nationwide and Farmers Insurance, the affidavit said.
Hakimian has been in business for 14 years and runs 75 shops in 22 states, according to his Web site ( www.autoglass4u.com).
Reached Saturday at the glass company's headquarters on West Grand Avenue in Oakland, Guinto said, "I have no comment on that." The other defendants and their attorneys could not be reached or did not respond to requests for comment Saturday.
The FBI's investigation began in 2005 when a confidential source who worked at a Glass Masters shop came forward with paperwork showing 10 examples of billing irregularities, according to Leoni.
Several district managers with Glass Masters appeared to have prior knowledge of the scam, and one just shrugged his shoulders and said, "I know, they'll get in trouble for it one day" when asked about it by the source, Leoni wrote.
FBI agents and U.S. Postal Service inspectors searched Hakimian's headquarters in December 2006 and learned that it maintained a computerized billing system that contained detailed information from invoices generated at local shops, according to the affidavit.
Authorities visually inspected a number of cars that had windshields replaced at Bay Area shops operated by Hakimian. In some cases, the revised invoices falsely stated that the windshield contained a specialized solar tinting or was equipped with a rain sensor, Leoni wrote.
Hakimian encouraged customers to file a claim with their insurance company, instead of paying cash, so that he could inflate invoices, the FBI said. As an incentive to get customers to file claims, Hakimian instructed his branch managers to offer to waive the customer's insurance deductible, according to the FBI.
E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com.
