Rep. Laura Gillen introduced H.R. 10269 on Sept. 3; it is before House Judiciary and has not passed. The bill would make knowingly staging a crash and submitting a false insurance claim a federal crime; it would apply to any motor vehicle.
The offense would cover attempts as well as completed schemes. It requires both a knowingly caused, staged, fabricated or simulated motor-vehicle accident and submission of a false claim for an insurance loss; a staged crash without a claim, or an inflated claim from a real crash, would not qualify. Penalties would include a fine, up to 10 years in prison, or both; up to 20 years for serious bodily injury and any term of years up to life if someone dies.
Existing federal wire-fraud law already lets prosecutors pursue crash-fraud schemes using interstate communications, with penalties of up to 20 years. H.R. 10269’s 10-year base maximum is lower, and its text does not spell out an interstate-commerce connection; the article says that could raise questions about federal jurisdiction.
