Years after authorities uncovered Operation Sideswipe, details about the full extent of the elaborate scheme to defraud insurance companies and motor carriers continue to emerge.

On March 20, a federal jury convicted personal-injury attorneys for their roles in the scheme.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced that Vanessa Motta, 44, and Jason F. Giles, 47, were found guilty of all charges related to the scheme, including conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, obstruction of justice and witness tampering. The jury also convicted law firms Motta Law LLC and The King Firm LLC, as well as co-conspirator Diamanike F. Stalbert, 35.

Including this jury trial, a total of 63 defendants have been charged with offenses related to Operation Sideswipe. This New Orleans-based scheme staged crashes with tractor-trailers to collect money from fraudulent lawsuits. Some of the individual crashes yielded millions of dollars in settlements.

According to court documents, the defendants participated in a long-running scheme to defraud insurance companies and commercial trucking companies by staging and litigating fraudulent automobile collisions to collect insurance company payouts. That scheme began around December 2011 and continued until December 2024, and it involved New Orleans-area personal injury attorneys paying “slammers” to recruit passengers to participate in intentional collisions with automobiles, especially 18-wheeler trucks with large commercial insurance policies.

The Department of Justice said the attorneys would then litigate those cases on behalf of the passengers, often encouraging those passengers to seek medically unnecessary neck and back surgeries to incur medical costs and increase the size of future insurance company settlements.

“Along with slammers, attorneys and passengers, the scheme also included spotters, who drove getaway cars for the slammers and recruiters like Stalbert, who facilitated numerous staged collisions by bringing new passengers into the scheme,” the DOJ wrote.

If the scheme wasn’t already elaborate enough, the DOT said the jury also found Motta and Motta Law guilty of obstruction of justice and witness tampering for attempting to pay a witness to move to the Bahamas so the witness couldn’t cooperate with federal authorities.

The jury also found Giles and The King Firm guilty of obstruction of justice and witness tampering for secretly recording a charged individual in October 2020 in an attempt to manufacture exculpatory evidence. Meanwhile, Stalbert was acquitted of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.

“Today’s verdict was the culmination of a lengthy investigation that amassed overwhelming evidence proving the defendants’ roles in a years-long scheme to defraud, as well as their subsequent efforts to obstruct justice and tamper with witnesses,” said Michael M. Simpson, an assistant U.S. attorney. “Motta, Motta Law, Giles and The King Firm successfully launched a fraudulent scheme of epic proportions that both victimized the judicial system and exploited the auto insurance industry, all to enrich themselves with millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains. This prosecution and today’s verdict make clear that no one is above the law.”

Sentencing for Stalbert is scheduled for July 21. The others are scheduled to be sentenced on July 14. LL