The doubleheader sentencing of two of the highest-profile men involved in the Louisiana staged truck accident scam has been delayed again.
Both Damian Lebeaud, heavily involved in on-the-ground planning and “slamming” targeted trucks, and Danny Keating, the one attorney involved in the scam who has been indicted, were to be sentenced Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Lebaued’s sentencing had been delayed previously and had been moved to Thursday, coinciding with the Keating sentencing.
But neither took place. The Keating sentencing has been continued until Feb. 1. LeBeaud’s sentencing is set for Feb. 22. Court documents do not indicate any reason for the delays.
The delays in the sentencings leave the scorecard in the Louisiana staged accident scam mostly the same: a variety of sentences handed down to mostly low-level operatives who were riding in the cars that staged collisions with trucks or in one case a bus in order to generate insurance payouts. Keating, the one indicted lawyer involved in the scheme, pleaded guilty back in June 2021. Lebeaud, the high-level planner, pleaded guilty in August 2020.
What has not happened are indictments against attorneys A, B, C, D and E, identified by those monikers in various indictments and sentencing reports. All were said to have been involved in the planning of the staged accidents. (Keating is identified by name in those reports as a result of his guilty plea.)
There also have not been any indictments of medical personnel the various documents suggest participated in unnecessary surgeries to help produce bigger payouts from insurance companies.
There is another unsettled part of the case. Soon after he was indicted in 2020, purported scam organizer Cornelius Garrison was gunned down in his home. No arrests have been made in that murder.
All of the indictments involve federal charges connected to mail fraud or wire fraud. None have gone to trial. The number of guilty pleas exceeds 40.
The most recent indictments in the case came in August. After a long interim from the indictment prior to that, five individuals were charged. None were seen as leaders of the scam.
Since then, there have been two other sentencings. One was a stiff penalty: Roderick Hickman was sentenced in October to 42 months. That is the third-longest penalty assessed in the case. The insurance payouts from the March 2017 staged accident for which he was sentenced totaled $277,500 and he was ordered to pay about $5.7 million in restitution.
Hickman’s sentence is believed to be the third longest, behind the husband and wife team of Anthony Robinson and Audrey Harris. They each got four years in a June 2021 sentencing.
The other recent sentencing was for 18 months handed down in October to Joseph Brewton. He also was ordered to pay restitution of roughly $554,000.
Sentences in the case have been as light as probation and as long as the Robinson-Harris pairing, with some sentencing ordering home confinement.
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