Police Officer Sentenced for Role in Insurance Fraud Conspiracy With Other Officers

A federal judge in Maryland has sentenced a former Anne Arundel County police officer for his role in an auto-insurance fraud scheme that involved several other officers.

Jaron Earl Taylor, of Ft. Washington, Maryland, was sentenced to three years of probation, with the first five months served on home detention, for conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The judge also ordered Taylor to pay $38,670 in restitution to the United States Automobile Association (USAA). Taylor pled guilty to the charge in June.

Co-conspirator Michael Anthony Owen, Jr., of Accokeek, previously pled guilty to falsifying records, in connection with the conspiracy. Owen’s sentencing is scheduled for August 18.

The two were among a number of officers indicted in 2021.

According to court documents, between August 2018 and February 2020, Taylor and Owen, who were Anne Arundel County Police Department and Prince George’s County Police Department (PGPD) officers, respectively, at the time, conspired with fellow police officers to engage in mail and wire fraud.

Ex-Police Officers Plead Guilty to Conspiring in Auto Insurance Fraud Scheme

Taylor and Owen, along with officers Candace Tyler, of Bowie, who pled guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud; Conrad D’Haiti, of La Plata, who pled guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud; and Davion Percy, of Suitland, who a jury convicted at trial in June 2026, of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, and others, devised a scheme for insurance companies to pay out the remaining financing costs of unwanted vehicles.

Prosecutors said the officers were part of a conspiracy that involved reporting fictitious losses to insurers to obtain money or avoid paying off damaged vehicles that were worth less than the amount owed on them. The co-conspirators were accused of using their statuses as police officers to assist each other’s claims by writing false police reports. Then co-conspirators submitted fictitious police reports to insurers to validate the claim.

In August 2018, Taylor and Owen staged the theft of Taylor’s Chevrolet Tahoe. After Taylor filed a fraudulent police report, Taylor and Owen stripped the vehicle and drove it into the woods off a Maryland state highway near Largo. Taylor then made a false claim to the insurer USAA for the loss, for which USAA paid out a total of $38,670.

Also in January 2020, prosecutors showed that Owen assisted D’Haiti in avoiding payment on the loan balance of a Jaguar XKR. In cooperation with D’Haiti and Percy, Owen devised a scheme to fake the vehicle’s theft. On January 4, D’Haiti parked his Jaguar behind a shopping center in the town where Percy worked as police chief.

According to prosecutors, D’Haiti then paid Percy $350 to arrange for another co-conspirator to tow the vehicle and vandalize it to create a total insurance loss. Tyler subsequently filed the fictitious police report which D’Haiti used to substantiate his claim against Liberty Mutual Insurance. In February 2020, Liberty Mutual paid the Jaguar’s lienholder, Navy Federal Credit Union, $17,585, on the false claim.

Additionally, prosecutors charged that in January 2020, Taylor and Owen assisted with disposing of an Infiniti sedan to help a co-conspirator avoid making further payments on the vehicle while on extended overseas duty. The co-conspirator gave Taylor $1,000 to stage the theft. Taylor then forwarded the money to Owen who filed a false police report with PGPD, stating the vehicle was stolen.

But Taylor, Owen, and others moved the car to a Camp Springs apartment-complex parking garage. They then removed the vehicle’s license plates and replaced them with different ones registered to another vehicle. Then the owner and co-conspirator filed a claim with GEICO that was eventually denied on grounds of fraud.

Kelly O. Hayes, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, commended the FBI and PGPD for their work in the investigation.

In another case involving law enforcement officers a former Fairmount Heights police officer, and a former Prince George’s County police officer were found guilty by a jury of wire fraud, arson and insurance and bank fraud. The fraud schemes involving filing false police reports and falsifying loss claims to obtain funds from an insurance company and three different financial institutions.