Fraud Didn't Enrich Officers, Authorities Say
By MICHAEL WILSON

It all started in a barbershop in the Bronx. Between the bustle of four chairs, a Ms. Pac-Man machine and the Spanish soap operas on the little television, prosecutors said, two owners of the barbershop, one of them a former police officer, came up with a way to be paid for automobile accidents that had never happened.

Over two years, prosecutors said yesterday, the scheme grew to include four police officers and a dozen civilians, who filed claims for necks and backs that had never been sprained, for chassis that had not been bent. They cheated seven insurance companies out of almost $230,000, the authorities said, by filing the fake reports and sending the supposed drivers to medical clinics pretending they had been hurt.

All four officers were arraigned yesterday and pleaded not guilty.

The indictments came one year after three officers in Brooklyn were charged in a similar auto insurance case. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly praised the investigation that uncovered what he called a betrayal of the department.

But for all their trouble, and all the trouble they are now in, the officers got little back from the operation, no more than $1,000 each over two years, prosecutors said.