Baltimore Police Officer Signs Off on Fraud Charges

Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran, Jr., announced that Derek D. Hayes, of Baltimore Maryland, was convicted of insurance fraud in the Circuit Court for Howard County on March 30, 2004.

The conviction follows a joint investigation conducted by the Insurance Fraud Division of the Maryland Insurance Administration and the Office of the Attorney General. The Baltimore City Police Department employs Hayes as a police officer. He had been charged with engaging in a continuing course of conduct between Oct. 10, 2004 and Oct. 25, 2002 in which he is reported to have knowingly presented false information to State Farm Insurance Companies in an attempt to support a false claim for a laptop computer.

Evidence presented by the prosecutor included that on Oct. 10, 2002 Hayes reported to State Farm Insurance Companies that his car had been broken into and that items including a laptop computer had been stolen. Hayes originally told representatives of the insurance company that the computer was a Panasonic compact computer that had been a gift from a person who was no longer alive.

Hayes was interviewed by a company representative on Oct. 25, 2002 and reportedly stated, among other things, that the computer was a Dell computer, that the laptop had been given to him within the prior few months following the death of his grandfather, and that he used the computer during his patrol work as a police officer.

Later in the same interview Hayes reportedly stated that the same grandfather died about a year earlier, and later yet in the interview that the grandfather died in 1996. Hayes did not respond to requests by State Farm Insurance Companies after the interview on Oct. 25, 2002 that he submit a “Sworn Proof of Loss”. Hayes’ claim was closed by the company without payment on Dec. 2, 2002.

An investigation revealed that Hayes’ grandfather died in 1994. Interviews of Hayes’ colleagues on the city police force failed to substantiate his claim that he used a laptop computer during his work as a police officer.

Additionally, a review by the Maryland State Police of documents submitted by Hayes in support of his claim found that the laptop computer described in the documents could not have been produced before July 2001.