Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran, Jr., announced that Derek D. Hayes, of Baltimore Maryland, was sentenced for his conviction for insurance fraud in the Circuit Court for Howard County on March 30, 2004.

The conviction follows a joint investigation conducted by the Insurance Fraud Division of the Maryland Insurance Administration and the Office of the Attorney General.

According to the Attorney General's Office, Judge Dennis M. Sweeney sentenced Hayes to one year in the Howard County Detention Center and fined him $1,000. Judge Sweeney suspended the period of incarceration and $500 of the fine in favor of eighteen months of supervised probation. Additionally, the judge ordered Hayes to complete 50 hours of community service within six months and to pay $500 of the fine within nine months.

The Baltimore City Police Department employs Hayes as a police officer. He has been suspended since being charged with the offense. Hayes had been charged with engaging in a continuing course of conduct between October 10, 2002 and October 25, 2002 in which he knowingly presented false information to State Farm Insurance Companies in an attempt to support a false claim for a laptop computer.

Evidence presented by the prosecutor included that on October 10, 2002 Hayes reported to State Farm Insurance Companies that his car had been broken into and that items including a laptop computer had been stolen. Hayes originally told representatives of the insurance company that the computer was a Panasonic compact computer that had been a gift from a person who was no longer alive.

The Attorney General reports that Hayes was interviewed by a company representative on October 25, 2002 and stated, among other things, that the computer was a Dell computer, that the laptop had been given to him within the prior few months following the death of his grandfather, and that he used the computer during his patrol work as a police officer. Later in the same interview Hayes stated that the same grandfather died about a year earlier, and later yet in the interview that the grandfather died in 1996. Hayes did not respond to requests by State Farm Insurance Companies after the interview on October 25, 2002 that he submit a “Sworn Proof of Loss”. Hayes’ claim was closed by the company without payment on December 2, 2002.

Investigation revealed that Hayes grandfather died in 1994. Interviews of Hayes’ colleagues on the city police force failed to substantiate his claim that he used a laptop computer during his work as a police officer.

Additionally, a review by the Maryland State Police of documents submitted by Hayes in support of his claim found that the laptop computer described in the documents could not have been produced before July 2001.