Former deputy charged with insurance fraud

A former Halifax County deputy was arrested by last week by officials with the North Carolina Department of Insurance and charged with conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and failing to report an accident.

Fontay Lakia Macon, 28, of 4033 Roper Springs Rd., Littleton, was picked up last week by investigators with the insurance department and charged with the offense.

His mother, Ida Macon, 66, of the same address, was also arrested and charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud.

The charges stem from a March 22 single-car wreck that occurred, and from what insurance department officials say was a bogus accident report from a wreck that was reported to have occurred on April 2.

Roanoke Rapids Deputy Police Chief J.K. Hinton said his office responded to a wreck at 1:56 a.m. on Old Farm Road on March 22, but not because the driver had reported it. He said residents in the area heard the crash and called the police.

When officers arrived on the scene, they found a 2005 Chevrolet had collided with a utility pole, but the driver had fled the scene.

After learning the vehicle belonged to Ida Macon, he said officers checked with Fontay Macon, who told them he did not know anything about the wreck, or who might have been driving the car.

“At that point in time, our investigation was not able to determine concretely who was the driver of the vehicle,” Hinton said, so no local charges were filed. “The wreck caused $4,000 in damage to the utility pole,” he said, and necessitated utility workers being on the scene for several hours for repairs.

Chrissy Pearson, a spokesperson for the department of insurance, said Fontay Macon did report a wreck to his insurance company, Procter-Owen Insurance GMAC,.but stated the wreck happened on April 2. There is no police report for the alledged April 2 report, and Macon did not mention the March 22 report to his insurance company, Pearson said.

Macon ultimately received $7,400 in insurance money from his insurance company, the department alledges.

Macon was, apparently, a deputy with the Halifax County Sheriff’s Office at the time of the alledged incident, but officials with the sheriff’s office refused to confirm that and refused to say when Macon left the office, or if he was fired or left of his own violition.

“He’s a former deputy, he was a former deputy,” was all Chief Deputy Wes Trip would say. When asked for additional details, he added “Why don’t you call the insurance commission?”

Hinton, with the Roanoke Rapids police department, said he remembered the accident and he believes Macon was still a county deputy at the time of the wreck.

The Department of Insurance employs 20 sworn law enforcement officers dedicated to investigating claims of insurance fraud. As of September 2007, these investigators have seen 442 cases successfully closed with more than $14.2 million in restitution and recoveries and 36 criminal convictions.