Adam Haddad, Local Auto Body Shop Owner, Sentenced For Damaging Cars To Collect More Insurance Money

WOBURN (CBS) -- 44-year-old Adam Haddad, an auto body shop owner from Shrewsbury, pled guilty and was sentenced to serve two and a half years in prison on Wednesday for damaging cars to get more money out of insurance companies.

Haddad, who owned ADH Collison of Boston Inc. in Everett and Accurate Collision Inc. in Worcester, pled guilty in Middlesex Superior Court to 42 charges, including motor vehicle insurance fraud, attempted larceny and malicious destruction of property.

Massachusetts Attorney General Healey says on a regular basis Haddad took a customer's car and damaged it further before drawing up his repair quotes. In total, Haddad stole $170,000 from 11 different insurance companies.

"This defendant took sledgehammers and mallets to his customers' cars so he could jack up the cost of repairs, bill insurance companies, and make off with hundreds of thousands of dollars," Healey said in a press release.

In 2017, the Massachusetts Insurance Fraud Bureau started an investigation into Haddad's businesses. The investigation later revealed that Haddad either enhanced damages or caused new damages to a customer's vehicles in order to "falsely inflate appraisal repair quotes for labor, paint, and parts reimbursement requests".

Haddad made additional cash by pocketing the insurance money while also, in several instances, not completing the necessary repairs on his customers' cars.

Investigators discovered surveillance footage from the location of one of Haddad's businesses that showed him using sledgehammers, mallets and pieces of wood to intentionally create damage to five vehicles.