Woodland Hills Man Among 13 Charged in Fraud

A chiropractor from Woodland Hills and a dozen other people have been charged with fraud or other felonies in a complicated scheme that involved staging auto accidents and filing bogus insurance claims, county prosecutors said Wednesday.

Dr. Stanford Mark Sher, 51, was arrested Wednesday, along with six other people, Deputy Dist. Atty. Harvey Giss said.

The alleged ringleader, Beverly Hills lawyer E. Andrew Matyas, 45, is due to surrender today to authorities, Giss said.

Giss said many of the suspects staged auto accidents, sometimes in blind alleys, sometimes on busy freeways, then billed insurance companies for medical treatment at Sher’s Inglewood clinic that frequently had not been given. They also allegedly referred clients to Matyas, who paid out “hundreds of thousands of dollars� for the referrals over 10 years, Giss said.

Undercover investigators from the Los Angeles Police Department and the district attorney’s office joined the phony crashes using cars and insurance policies taken out with the National Insurance Crime Bureau, Giss said. The policies, backed by the federal agency, were necessary because the suspects required valid insurance for anyone seeking to participate in the scam, he alleged.

Sher was charged with one count of possession of a sawed-off shotgun, one count of perjury, eight counts of insurance fraud and three counts of capping--illegally obtaining clients or patients. He faces up to nine years and eight months in prison if convicted of all charges.

Matyas is charged with one count of filing a false insurance claim and four counts of capping. He faces up to nine years in prison if convicted.

Giss said this is the first major automobile fraud case investigated by the district attorney’s Bureau of Investigation. Three suspects remain at large, he said: Sandra Zay Torrss, 31, Rhoda Wayfer, 36, and Timothy Paul Orange, 30, all of Los Angeles. Two suspects were already in custody on other charges.