Collision Repair Shop Owner Ordered to Pay $435,000 in Restitution

The owner of a Pennsylvania collision repair shop who participated in the direct repair program for several insurers was ordered Monday to pay $435,246.69 in restitution and sentenced to probation for filing more than 300 false insurance claims.

John Paul Reis, 56, pleaded guilty in March to insurance fraud, deceptive business practices, forgery and theft by deception, all third-degree felonies, the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said. Reis, a resident of Newtown Township, owned the Chalfont Collision Center in the Philadelphia suburb of Chalfont.

Common Pleas Judge Charissa J. Liller sentenced Reis to 84 months of probation and home confinement with electronic monitoring. She ordered him to pay restitution to Erie Insurance, Nationwide Insurance, CSAA Insurance Group and Liberty Mutual Insurance and NJM Insurance, the DA’s office said.

“The defendant’s actions had a cost that greatly exceeded the high dollar figure with which he was charged,” Deputy District Attorney Marc J. Furber said in a press release. “This cost trickled down to all consumers. The defendant’s actions over the course of eight years were part of a crime spree that had the effect of increasing insurance premiums and costs across the board.”

Bucks County detectives and the Central Bucks Regional Police Department launched an investigation in 2018 after receiving a referral from Erie Insurance’s special investigations unit that Reis’ shop was enhancing and or creating damage to customers’ vehicles to inflate insurance estimates. The investigation revealed that he wiped a compound mixture onto the body of several vehicles and sometime struck the with a hammer to make it appear they had been involved in an accident.

Reis’ shop was enrolled in the direct repair programs for several insurers, which authorized his shop to write estimates, complete the repairs and submit the estimate and billing documents to those insurers for payment.

The insurers identified 289 estimates that contained artificial or inflated damages incorporated into the true facts of the estimates, submitted by Chalfont Collision between 2014 and 2022, the DA’s office said.

The shop’s direct repair credentials have been suspended.