Danny Patrick Keating, Jr., Conspiracy to Commit Mail and Wire Fraud, Louisiana 2021

A New Orleans personal injury attorney has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in a scheme involving staged automobile accidents with tractor-trailers.

Danny Patrick Keating, Jr., 52, of New Orleans, Louisiana, entered a plea of guilty today to Conspiracy to Commit Mail and Wire Fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371, arising out of staged automobile accidents with tractor-trailers occurring in New Orleans before Chief United States District Court Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown.

Keating was the thirty-third defendant charged in the Government's federal probe into the intentional staging of motor vehicle accidents with tractor-trailers and commercial vehicles in the metropolitan New Orleans area.

According to today's guilty plea, Keating was a personal injury attorney licensed to practice law in the State of Louisiana. He admitted to conspiring with Damian Labeaud and others to defraud insurance companies, commercial carriers, and trucking companies in a scheme involving intentionally staging automobile accidents.

Labeaud referred staged accidents to Keating and other New Orleans personal injury attorneys for $1,000.00 per passenger for accidents involving tractor-trailers and $500.00 per passenger for accidents not involving tractor-trailers. Keating advanced Labeaud thousands of dollars for these accidents and instructed Labeaud that he owed Keating a certain number of accidents based on the amount of money advanced.

For instance, on July 17, 2017, Keating gave Labeaud $15,000.00 so Labeaud could purchase a $15,000.00 Chase Bank cashier's check to buy Mario Solomon's truck. Additionally, on September 25, 2017, Keating wrote a $17,000.00 check to himself for 'advertising' and used the proceeds to purchase a $17,000.00 cashier's check payable to Labeaud.

Keating admitted he knowingly paid Labeaud for thirty-one illegally staged tractor-trailer accidents. Keating represented seventy-seven plaintiffs involved in the thirty-one accidents staged by Labeaud. Keating settled seventeen of the thirty-one staged accidents. The Indictment charged that Keating and his clients received approximately $1,500,000.00 in settlement resulting from his representation of his clients involved in the staged accidents and that Keating kept approximately $358,000.00 in attorney's fees.

Keating admitted he filed lawsuits in state and federal court in Louisiana on behalf of his clients who were involved in the staged accidents. The lawsuits filed on behalf of the seventy-seven plaintiffs fraudulently alleged who was driving the vehicles, misrepresented who was at fault in the staged accidents, and falsely claimed injuries.

Keating used the U.S Postal Service to mail settlement demands on behalf of his clients who were involved in staged accidents from the Eastern District of Louisiana to various out-of-state locations. In many cases, clients of Keating provided false testimony in depositions taken in conjunction with lawsuits filed by Keating.

Keating faces a maximum term of five years imprisonment, a fine of $250,000.00 or twice the gross gain to the defendant or twice the gross loss to any person of the offense under Title 18, United States Code, Section 3571. In addition, Keating faces a term of supervised release up to three years after his release from prison. Sentencing in this matter is scheduled for January 20, 2021, before Chief United States District Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edla/pr/new-orleans-personal-injury-attorney-pleads-guilty-connection-staged-accident-probe