Former NFL player arrested on suspicion of staging vehicle collisions for insurance money

Jeffrey Leon Webb, a former Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver, has been arrested on suspicion of staging four motor vehicle accidents as part of an insurance fraud scheme, according to authorities.

Webb, 34, was arrested June 28 on Goodrich Street in Indio and was later released on $120,000 bail. He is accused of working with nine others to stage collisions that resulted in $70,000 in fraudulent insurance claims and $139,000 in total losses, according to the California Department of Insurance.

Web allegedly acted as ring leader in the scheme, which involved four staged vehicle collisions between July 2012 and March 2013. State insurance authorities began investigating Webb after one of the targeted insurers noticed inconsistencies in the claims and reported it as fraud.

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Nancy Kincaid, a spokesperson for the California Department of Insurance, said staged collisions are becoming an “epidemic” in California, with criminals targeting victims driving pick-ups or U-Haul trucks.

“There’s been a big push over the last few years to push collisions to the other side of the highway to prevent congestion,” she said. “But that makes it more difficult for us to tell whether it was staged or not.”

Webb received the bulk of the money from such collisions, using both privately owned and rental cars that he and his co-conspirators bought insurance coverage for. They then purposefully crashed them into poles or curbs, according to officials.

The Riverside County district attorney’s office is prosecuting the case, with a court hearing set for Aug. 8.

alexia.fernandez@latimes.com

Twitter: @alexiafedz

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