Lawyer gets 32 months for staged truck crash scheme
The U.S. Attorney's Office in New Orleans says the attorney admitted paying for 31 staged crashes with tractor-trailers and settled 17 of them.
What happened
Former New Orleans injury lawyer Danny Patrick Keating Jr. was sentenced Oct. 15 to 32 months in prison over staged crashes with tractor-trailers. A federal judge also ordered $657,405.34 in restitution on his conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud count. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana says he admitted paying for 31 staged crashes with tractor-trailers, represented 77 plaintiffs in them and settled 17. The indictment charged that he and his clients received about $1.5 million in settlements.
Why it matters
Land Line reported the sentence on Oct. 23 and notes that 63 people have been charged so far in the federal probe, known as Operation Sideswipe. A Senate bill introduced in July, the Staged Accident Fraud Prevention Act (S. 5058), would make staging a crash with a commercial motor vehicle a federal crime. Land Line carried a statement from OOIDA's Lewie Pugh that staged crashes add to rising insurance premiums for small trucking businesses.
What to consider
Keep cameras recording, train drivers to photograph the scene and the other vehicle after any crash, and tell your insurer early if a crash looks staged. Read the U.S. Attorney's release · How trucking loss runs work
Sources
Reporting and records credited to the sources above, Oct. 23, 2026. We link to the original and add what it means for carriers.
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