US Senator Charged with Insurance Fraud & Other Crimes Fights Search
Warrants
Barry Zalma
Mar 8, 2024
Read the full article at https://lnkd.in/d-5MjhcM, see the full video at https://lnkd.in/dTTzAjRn and at https://lnkd.in/dpwuY7zf and at https://zalma.com/blog plus more than 4750 posts.
Post 4751
In United States Of America v. Robert Menendez, Nadine Menendez, Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes, No. S2 23-CR-490 (SHS), the United States District Court, S.D. New York (March 4, 2024) dealt with attempts to defeat the search warrants that found evidence that Senator Menendez, (D. New Jersey) was involved in selling favors for the benefit of a foreign country.
Defendant Robert Menendez (“Menendez”) moved for (1) a Franks hearing to assess allegedly material misstatements and omissions in certain of the government’s search warrant applications and (2) an order suppressing evidence from additional warrants seeking electronically stored information on the grounds that they are “general unconstitutional warrants.”
BACKGROUND
The years-long investigation that led to the indictment in this action involved the issuance of numerous search warrants for both physical locations and electronic devices or accounts. Menendez challenges a subset of the warrants.
Menendez challenges the three warrants on the grounds that the warrants were “riddled with material misrepresentation and omissions that deceived the authorizing magistrate judge.”
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. Thus, a warrant may not be issued unless probable cause is properly established and the scope of the authorized search is set out with particularity.
With respect to intentionality, the reviewing court must be presented with credible and probative evidence that a misstatement or omission in a warrant application was designed to mislead or was made in reckless disregard of whether it would mislead.
The evidence supported probable cause as to Menendez’s involvement. Within two hours of the call from Menendez’s office to the official, Hana texted Nadine asking for her address. Only a few days later, Nadine also texted Hana, “I’m so excited to get a car next week. !!” In addition, the affidavit cites a message from Nadine to Hana indicating that Nadine had forwarded the materials related to Egypt to Menendez. In summary, the warrant application amply satisfied probable cause and adding any omitted information contained in the CS transcript would not alter that determination.
THE JUNE MENENDEZ HOME WARRANT
Contrary to Menendez’s assertion, the Second Affidavit includes additional evidence supporting probable cause, including messages from Uribe asking Hana for help disrupting a New Jersey investigation. Therefore, as with the January 2022 Menendez ESI Warrant, the Court denied Menendez’s request.
The court concluded that the omissions are not material: the inclusion of this additional information would not change the probable cause determination. The New Jersey Defendant, the jeweler, and the testing company owner are all alleged beneficiaries of the bribery scheme. The fact that beneficiaries of an alleged scheme denied their involvement or knowledge after the fact when questioned by a government agent is not sufficient to overcome the significant contemporaneous evidence supporting probable cause that is otherwise present in the Third affidavit.
Menendez has not provided any evidence-and there is no basis to infer-that the omissions were intentionally or recklessly misleading. Indeed, the government only learned the relevant information on the same day that the warrant was sought, which casts significant doubt on the claim that its omission was designed to mislead.
Accordingly, each of the omissions does not meet the materiality threshold. Moreover, the combined, cumulative effect of the omissions raised by Hana – including those that were also raised by Menendez – does not rise to the level of the substantial preliminary showing required for a Franks hearing.
THE WARRANTS ARE NOT UNCONSTITUTIONALLY OVERBROAD
The court found that the Menendez Warrants satisfied the requirements of particularity. Menendez also took issue with the breadth of iCloud account collections, but it is well settled that the government may seize the entire contents of electronic accounts in order to search for relevant evidence.
In sum, the Menendez Warrants are not violative of the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.
CONCLUSION
Menendez’s Motion to Suppress Search Warrant Returns was denied. Additionally, the challenged Menendez Warrants do not violate the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement.
ZALMA OPINION
When a United States Senator engages in acts to protect a person committing insurance fraud and providing assistance to the Country of Egypt was subject to search warrants that allowed the search of his home and seizure of evidence of his fraud and inappropriate conduct to favor, for a fee, the concerns of a foreign country. He attempted to have the search warrants eliminated and the seizure of evidence during the searches conducted and that attempt clearly failed. This case establishes, among other things, that insurance fraud is committed by every race, religion, gender, national origin, wealth, or service in public office is rampant and in this one, rare case, has resulted in an arrest.
(c) 2024 Barry Zalma & ClaimSchool, Inc.
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Please tell your friends and colleagues about this blog and the videos and let them subscribe to the blog and the videos.
Subscribe to my substack at https://lnkd.in/gcZKhG6g, Go to X @bzalma; https://lnkd.in/gV9QJYH; the Insurance Claims Library – https://lnkd.in/gwEYk
Insurance Expert May Not Testify to Speculative and Contains Unsupported Conclusions.
Posted on September 18, 2026 by Barry Zalma
See the full video at and at https://rumble.com/v7fmifw-expert-may-only-testify-to-what-experience-supports.html
In Michele A. Over, and The Estate Of Paul R. Over v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, and State Farm Fire And Casualty Company, Civil Action No. 23-cv-02243-PAB-STV, United States District Court, D. Colorado (September 14, 2026) Michele and Paul Over sued State Farm Fire and State Farm Auto over hail-damage and stolen-vehicle claims.
The operative dispute concerned State Farm Auto’s motion to exclude or limit opinions from plaintiffs’ insurance-industry expert, Aaron Castillo. Castillo.
Law
The proponent of expert testimony must establish by a preponderance of the evidence that an expert is qualified and that the opinions are helpful, sufficiently grounded, and reliably derived and applied. Experience-based opinions must explain how the...
150 Months in Prison for Tax Fraud
Post 4846
Posted on September 17, 2026 by Barry Zalma
See the full video at https://lnkd.in/g8rh3JBX and https://lnkd.in/gmkdy-9C, In United States Of America v. Thomas Addaquay, Nos. 25-10609, 25-10611, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit (September 9, 2026) the Eleventh Circuit affirmed all challenged convictions, the 150-month aggregate sentence, and the challenged $4,123,474.55 restitution award.
FACTS
In United States Of America v. Thomas Addaquay, United States Of America v. Thomas Addaquay, Nos. 25-10609, 25-10611, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit (September 9, 2026) the Eleventh Circuit affirmed all challenged convictions, the 150-month aggregate sentence, and the challenged $4,123,474.55 restitution award.
FACTS
Thomas Addaquay controlled United Consolidated Accounting and Business Services (UC), nominally a check-cashing business.
The government proved a three-stage tax-refund scheme that converted the resulting refund checks into usable funds through ...
Major Fraud Perpetrator Asserts Fifth Amendment Privilege to Avoid Prosecution
Post 5489
Posted on September 14, 2026 by Barry Zalma
Fraudster Refuses to Answer Questions About His Alleged Fraud
See the full video at https://lnkd.in/gvicAMDr and at https://lnkd.in/gvicAMDr
In Great American Insurance Co. v. Gemstone Property Management, LLC, et al., No. 23-cv-9100 (LJL), United States District Court, S.D. New York (September 8, 2026) Great American Insurance Company alleged that it was defrauded through a scheme in which Subin Associates, LLP recruited individuals to stage construction-site injuries, arranged unnecessary medical treatment and litigation funding, and pursued fraudulent personal-injury claims.
Luis Manuel Garcia Salcedo, resulted in a $6 million settlement. Non-party Jose Hernandez allegedly worked as an assistant manager at Subin, operated Hernandez Associates, and owned litigation-funding companies that shared office space with Subin and provided services to its clients.
After Great American ...
Employee Report of Fraud Results in Damages Suit After Qui Tam Suit Settled
No Statutory Hearing Right Arose Because No Dental Commission Complaint License Suspension, Revocation, Or Sanction Occurred.
Post 4855
Posted on October 2, 2026 by Barry Zalma
In Abbas Mohammadi et al. v. William M. Tong et al., No. AC 47598, Court of Appeals of Connecticut (September 29, 2026) Abbas Mohammadi owned and operated Columbia Dental, P.C., which provided dental services through multiple Connecticut offices; Columbia Oral Maxillofacial Imaging, LLC served as the billing entity.
From April 2012 to February 27, 2013, Columbia Dental employed Brittany Ames Mahoney as a dental assistant. During her employment, Mahoney claimed to have discovered certain billing irregularities, including, but not limited to, false and fraudulent reimbursement claims submitted to the Department of Social Services for services rendered to Medicaid beneficiaries. Mahoney filed a complaint and an affidavit in the United States District Court for the District of...
Another Anniversary for Barry Zalma, Inc
Posted on October 1, 2026 by Barry Zalma
From October 1, 1979 – 2026
Post 4854
Read the full issue of ZIFL at https://zalma.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/ZIFL-10-01-2026.pdf Forty seven years ago today I left the world of the employed and became an entrepreneur by opening my own law firm. The law practice was incorporated shortly thereafter as Barry Zalma, Inc.
When I opened for business on October 1, 1979, I had no clients and no certainty that I would have any in the future. I had borrowed money from the bank to carry me through the first six months and was concerned about my ability to pay the loan with my third child about to be born.
Much to my surprise and pleasure, on October 1, 1979, at 8:10 a.m., the best claims handler in the London market, Alan Warboys, called from London and provided me with my first case as an independent lawyer to represent Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s, London. He, and the Lloyd’s Underwriters he represented, showed faith in me as a lawyer and insurance expert. Alan is now, although ...
Defendants Successfully Moved for Summary Judgment
Post 4854
Posted on September 30, 2026 by Barry Zalma
In Jeffrey Wayne Phillips v. Creative Website Studios, et al., No. 5:23-CV-568-BO-BM, United States District Court, E.D. North Carolina, Western Division (September 28, 2026) the Court needed to rule on the order and memorandum and recommendation (“M&R”) of the Magistrate.
Jeffrey Wayne Phillips had contracted with Creative Website Studios and SR Telecommunications for website and hosting services. He alleged that defendants repeatedly billed him for hosting periods he had already paid for and later took down his website. Phillips claimed the outage prevented him from bidding on U.S. government security contracts and sought roughly $300 million in consequential damages.
LAW
Under North Carolina law, fraud requires a false material representation or concealment, intent and effect of deception, resulting damage, and reasonable reliance. Obtaining property by false pretenses similarly requires an ...
