Former City Employee, 2 Others Charged Insurance Fraud Case
By Paul Kurtz
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The DA's office has filed insurance fraud charges against a former city employee and South Philadelphia father and son.
The District Attorney's office has accused Ronald Galati Senior and Junior, and Robert Otterson of pocketing over $400,000 through an insurance fraud scam that ran through the city's Office of Fleet Management.
DA Seth Williams says Otterson was the Fleet Management point man who fraudulently helped the Galatis win a bid to receive overflow repair work at American Collision, their South Philadelphia auto body shop.
"He would write up bogus initial appraisals for each vehicle's anticipated repairs, endorse and authorize additional costs to increase what they could steal on each job and approve the Galatis fraudulently inflated repair and labor cost."
This case is an offshoot of a much larger fraud probe that snared the Galatis and 40 co-defendants three years ago.
Galati Sr. is a reputed mob associate who is currently serving a 22 year sentence in connection with a failed murder-for-hire scheme.