Twenty years ago, Askins said, lawyers ran point on the fraud. But today, it's doctors, chiropractors and phony clinics that hire runners to score referrals. Runners buy stacks of auto accident reports from police legal under Florida's Sunshine Law. They then directly solicit people involved in minor car crashes to see a particular doctor or lawyer. Add to this the proliferation of accident staging rings.
Rings link with sham clinics or unscrupulous doctors, chiropractors and lawyers.
Eight people were involved in the phony crash. Get the lawyers' The companion fraud-busting bills would go a long way to combat fraud, Askins said. Mandatory minimum jail terms delight him. He can ramp up his sting operations using jail as a club to force cooperation and eventually, weed out the dirty lawyers, doctors and chiropractors, jailing them. His Division of Insurance Fraud, which reports directly to Gallagher, has arrested about 12 lawyers since 1978, he said.