Man, 35, who falsified child’s death gets probation for insurance fraud



A 35-year-old Newark man was sentenced Friday to three years’ probation for trying to collect on a $25,000 life insurance policy by pretending that his 7-year-old son had died in North Carolina of an asthma attack.

 Anthony Myers Sr. pleaded guilty in December in state Superior Court, Morristown, to committing insurance fraud from March 21 to May 10, 2006, through his fraudulent claim to State Farm Insurance Co. that he was owed the life insurance benefit because his son died.

The son, who Myers has no contact with at this point, is alive and living with his mother in North Carolina.

The fraud case, prosecuted by the state Attorney General’s Office, was handled in Morris County because State Farm has offices here.

The scheme was uncovered, and State Farm never paid any insurance benefits to Myers.

Defense lawyer John Paul Velez asked Judge Salem Vincent Ahto to impose a short period of probation but the judge ordered a three-year term. Myers also is talking to the Attorney General’s Office about paying a civil penalty for the offense. The state was seeking a penalty of $5,000 but Myers had balked during his December plea to paying that amount.

Velez also argued to the judge that Myers intended no harm to anyone by his actions and never benefited in the end.

Myers submitted false information to State Farm that indicated his son, Anthony Myers Jr., died of an asthma attack in North Carolina on March 21, 2006.

Source:  Daily Record