Insurance: Judge jailed for insurance fraud
Judge Michael Joyce sat in judgement on a range of cases, delivering his judgments from the exhalted position of sitting looking down at those whose lives he had in his hands for those moments. But in the background, he was banking the proceeds of his own insurance fraud.
60 year old Joyce, who is no longer a judge, has been convicted of mail fraud and money laundering based upon false personal injury claims arising out of a minor traffic accident in 2001.
Now, Joyce has gone through that weird process that American courts allow of letting convicts go home and put their affairs in order before reporting to jail and turned up, as required, at Morgantown Jail in West Virginia, not too far from his home in Philadelphia.
There, he is one of 1097 minimum security mail prisoners.
With Prison Number 20518-068, his release date is not known although his sentence is 46 months.
And when he is released, he may have no home to go to: federal prosecutors say that the USD440,000 he is convicted of stealing was, in whole or in part, used to buy his house and they are commencing proceedings for forfeit it.
No doubt the insurers who were his victims will be queuing up to recover their share.
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