Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Hollywood Stuntwoman Turned Lawyer Charged in Massive Scam

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Vanessa Motta, a former Hollywood stuntwoman turned personal injury lawyer, has been charged in a massive conspiracy in which federal prosecutors claim car crashes were staged to collect insurance payouts. Motta and others charged have pleaded not guilty. Federal prosecutors in New Orleans claim a witness who was cooperating with agents was murdered for doing so. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at the case in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/CrimeFixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest:Dan Morgan  https://linktr.ee/mmforthepeopleCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law & Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. She fights for what you deserve. That ad is for Vanessa Mata, a personal injury lawyer who's now in hot water with the feds. I'll tell you how they say she's part of a ring that set up a car crash scam that led to one person's murder. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. A long list of people in New Orleans are accused of staging car crashes to collect insurance payouts

and in an effort to keep a witness from cooperating with the feds. Prosecutors say one man was murdered as part of the massive conspiracy. One of the people facing charges in this case is this woman. Her name is Vanessa Mata, and she owns the Mata Law Firm in New Orleans. Mata was once a stuntwoman before turning to the practice of law. In a statement, the U.S. attorney said, the members of the conspiracy intentionally staged automobile collisions in the New Orleans metropolitan area and submitted fraudulent insurance claims based on the staged collisions. The members of the conspiracy filed

fraudulent lawsuits in state and federal court based on the staged automobile collisions. Now, the Department of Justice says the crashes were all staged in the New Orleans area. As I mentioned, the statement went on to describe how these crashes were staged. The scheme included individuals who rode in automobiles as passengers, knowing they would be part of staged collisions. Those individuals later lied as part of fraudulent insurance claims and fraudulent lawsuits based on the staged collisions. Additionally, the scheme included individuals who drove automobiles

and intentionally collided with 18-wheeler tractor trailers and other commercial vehicles in order to stage collisions. Those were slammers. After the staged collisions, the slammers would flee the scene and a passenger would falsely claim to have been driving at the time of the collision. Four people named in a superseding indictment are alleged to have been these slammers, the people who staged the crashes. And the U.S. attorney says those four people recruited other people to take part in the scheme, and it was pretty elaborate. The DOJ went on to say, additionally, the scheme included individuals called spotters who drove getaway cars that

allowed the slammers to flee the scene after causing a collision and evade detection by law enforcement. The spotters would sometimes also pretend to be eyewitnesses and would flag down the commercial vehicles after the staged collisions, alleging that the commercial vehicles were at fault. Now, this case involves allegations of money laundering and wire fraud. But then in 2019, the feds say one of the spotters, Cornelius Garrison, started cooperating with agents. So Ryan Harris, another person involved, murdered him. Harris's lawyer has told a local TV station that he's not guilty of the charges. Another law firm, the King Law Firm out of New Orleans, has also been charged in the conspiracy. I've reached out to the firm for a comment, and at the time of this recording,

I have not yet received a response. Vanessa Mata has pleaded not guilty, and a total of 63 people face charges in this scheme. The cases I cover each day here on Crime Fix show you just how scary the world can be, and one of the scariest things that can happen is if you ever get hurt. But I want you to know if you're ever seriously hurt or in an accident, your case could be worth millions. That's where our sponsor, Morgan & Morgan, comes in. The firm has more than 1,000 lawyers who will fight for what you deserve, and they have the track record to prove it. In the past several months, Morgan & Morgan has won big verdicts like $12 million in Florida, $26 million in Philly, and $6.8 million in New York. All of those were much higher than the highest insurance company offer.

Seeing if you have a case can be done in eight clicks or less, and you don't even have to leave your couch to start one. Also a great thing, you only pay Morgan & Morgan if you win. There are no upfront fees. So if you're ever hurt, you can easily start a claim at ForThePeople.com slash CrimeFix. I want to bring in somebody who knows a lot about personal injury law. He is Dan Morgan. He is one of the managing partners of the Morgan and Morgan law firm, who you hear a lot about here on Law and Crime. So Dan, thanks so much for coming on. I'm really excited to talk to you about this case. I just want to get your gut reaction upon reading about the allegations that there were some personal injury lawyers involved in this alleged scam to set up car crashes and then

collect these big payouts. Yeah, the initial reaction is just it's terrible for the industry all around, not even, you know, let the courts figure out if they're guilty or not. But even the accusations being made just puts a dirty stain on the industry and what we do takes the credibility away from our clients that are righteously injured in these accidents and seeking compensation to have, you know, these kind of thoughts and this type of stuff thrown into the mix of what's possible of maybe it's not real. Maybe it's staged. Maybe they're doing it for money. Maybe it's a conspiracy. So, you know, you always kind of hear about these types of fraudulent schemes and different things happening in different cities, but to kind of see it drawn out like this and the details that I was reading over and how long it's been going on, I think it's like 2011. So over like 13 years of a long history, a long trail, a lot of evidence kind of looking that it is what it is. But yeah,

it's really bad for the entire industry as a whole, because you have people out there that are always yelling about tort reform and the things that need to be changed and how people are taking advantage of the system. And on the flip side, you're like, well, the people that need it, need it. But now you have people that are coming out and saying, well, if people are slamming into semi trucks and faking injuries to get big checks, well, obviously then something needs to be done to the industry. Yeah. And you bring up a really good point there. This was going on according to the allegations. And these are allegations. They have to be proven in court by the prosecution, of course, by the federal prosecutors. But they say it was going on

beginning in 2011 and going on all the way up until the superseding indictment was unsealed last month. So that is a really, really long time. And it was very, it seemed to me very elaborate. I mean, you have these slammers who do the car wreck and then the spotters who then chase people down and act as witnesses. I mean, have you ever heard of such a thing so elaborate, you know, some where it's so organized with people coming up with this and doing it over and over again? You know, there was recently another one that I think happened up in New York that came to light a few years, like a year ago or so, but it was something similar where there had, it was actually gang related, MS-13 gangs, so they were alleged doing it, but had some of these

undocumented workers and undocumented immigrants that were coming up here and kind of doing the same thing, getting in big car accidents or taking falls on construction sites on purpose, and then turning around and suing the companies for it. So unfortunately, we have been seeing some of these claims that have been popping up. And, you know, really as a law firm, you know, last year alone, we, you know, answered more than 2 million phone calls. So it really, you know, at Morgan & Morgan, we really have to do our job of vetting out and making sure everything's on the up and up, everything's legitimate. So there's definitely been more layers to put in to protect not only the insurance companies from the frauds, but from, you know, our own,

our own attorneys and our own law firm from the frauds, because unfortunately, people I think are seeing some of these verdicts and some of these settlements and they're thinking well that's an easy way to do it and now they're going out and doing conspiring um you know to do these you know these cash these crash for cash type schemes are you know the fall type scheme so unfortunately we have been seeing it a little bit more more recently um hopefully we these types of actions when they come in so heavy-handed you know, not only, you know, go after the attorneys involved, but the slammers involved, the defendants involved, the witnesses involved to send a message to the community that, hey, there's gonna be some serious consequences of this type of behavior continues. So do you guys ever see at Morgan and Morgan somebody come in with a claim that that you think was a setup that might be fraudulent? Yeah. I mean, we've had times before on slip and falls where we've been able to kind of cut real

quick because we can get the tapes. We see the videos of the person dropping the olive oil in the supermarket and then turning around and slip it on that same olive oil type of thing. And it's tough because you want to take all your clients for what they say and what they're saying. But when you get into discovery and you uncover some of those videos, you pretty much have to tell them, A, we're not taking this claim anymore, and, two, unfortunately, we have a duty to kind of turn this over to other authorities because there is crimes involved. And as an attorney, you do take that oath to kind of turn that stuff over if you do discover it.

That's pretty interesting. I mean, the allegation here, though, is that there were actual attorneys involved in this for many years and that they were a part of this and a part of filing the lawsuits. And then, of course, reaping the benefits. Now, you know, Vanessa Mata, for one, she pleaded not guilty. You know, we've reached out to her lawyer. He has not yet responded to my request for comment about these allegations. But, you know, this is somebody who is on TV down there in New Orleans soliciting business. And yet she's accused of something or being a part of something, even obstructing justice, witness tampering. You know, this case, they say a witness who was cooperating with the feds was even murdered.

I mean, that's part of the allegation here. Crazy. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, when you have kind of the attorneys that are involved in this as well, obviously it should alert everybody and start, you know, signing the alarm bells that, hey, this isn't just a problem, you know, that's going on when start, you know, signing the alarm bells that, hey, this isn't just a problem, you know, that's going on when these, you know, gang type communities or people that are scheming, but they actually have the attorneys involved, maybe have the doctors involved, they have witnesses involved, you know, and from what kind of allegations read,

it seems like some of these witnesses or some of the drivers were the same drivers, you know, so just kind of use some common sense and critical thinking. If I'm an attorney and I'm sitting in my fifth, you know, semi-truck accident and the witness just happens to be the same person, you know, my bells would be going off like this ain't smelling right. Something's wrong here. But again, I want to let the attorneys, you know, kind of defend themselves and see how it lays out. But yeah, all the, but with Motto and Giles was the other attorney named and a few other firms, you know, the way it reads is really, really bad for them. Yeah, it certainly does not read well for them. But of course, it will all play out in court. They're innocent until proven guilty, as any other criminal defendant is. You know, I just, you know, I'm just stunned by the sheer magnitude of this.

The feds say 63 people, a total of 63 people are charged in this case. It just seems like a massive alleged conspiracy. I think I actually saw a number that said up to 86 now, potentially. I'm not sure if we might, I might miss reading, but yeah, I think it's even growing now because you got to think once you get into it, well, who else is involved? Well, there's a passenger. And then there's maybe family members that are testifying about their condition before and after.

You've got doctors that might be in play that are treating these people. So, yeah, just because it's one crash, one person, that can lead to, you know, 10 people in one case because of everyone that's involved in the cover up. And there's drivers and the people get in the passenger seat from the driver's seat. And like you said, it's spun out all the way out of control where they're covering it up where someone got murdered because of it yeah and there's another thing that I think we should touch on too is the fact that you know they're targeting these big rigs and sometimes these big rigs are owned by big corporations but sometimes they're not I mean sometimes big rigs are just kind of these kind of freelance truckers.

Mom and pop shops, for sure. We see a lot of those where, you know, we have cases sometimes where you think, oh, there's a, you know, I had a case recently, it was a wrongful death, unfortunately, involving a car that was hauling fire trucks. They had no insurance on the car because it was a mom and pop shop that their insurance payment, they didn't make it. And then, you know, so you think, oh, hey, big hey big truck big company probably gonna be a big payout if something happens but yeah a lot of times you kind of peel back those levels of insurance that's who you're going after you're not really going after the companies obviously sometimes you kind of pierce the insurance but you're going to have the insurance and there's no if there's nothing there then there's really no case for

these people to recover so um i think yeah these people definitely were targeting the big rigs because there's an assumption that if it's a commercial, it's commercial truck or commercial policy will be a higher policy. Yeah. But a lot of times you'll see it's just a standard policy or no policy at all. Wow. Well, Dan Morgan, I really appreciate you coming on and offering your expertise on this managing partner of Morgan & Morgan. I appreciate it. I hope you'll come back. Absolutely. Anytime. Thanks for having me. Thank you. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.