Miami Homeowner Charged with Defrauding Citizens by Claiming Old Damage

Florida authorities have charged a Miami man – who has a long record of criminal and civil cases under his name – with insurance fraud after investigators found that some $300,000 in claims were linked to pre-exiting damage to his home.

Damacio Covon Green, 52, was arrested earlier this month after he claimed almost $80,000 in damage to his Miami Gardens home from a backed up drain line in early 2021, according to the Florida Department of Financial Services. A Citizens Property Insurance Co. adjuster found that the damage had occurred before the homeowner policy was written in 2020, the department said in a statement.

The revelations in the 2021 claim led investigators to determine that $302,000 in previous claims were for alleged damage that was old and had not been disclosed when policies were inked, a DFS spokesman said.

“Insurance fraud continues to be a growing problem affecting all Floridians,” Citizen’s Special Investigations Unit Director Joseph Theobald said in a statement. “Most of all, honest policyholders end up paying higher premiums to counteract the cost of fraud.”

Green is no stranger to criminal allegations and civil litigation. Miami-Dade court records show that the man sued Citizens in 2014 for breach of contract after the insurer denied all or part of a property insurance claim. The case was settled in 2021.

In 2017, Green filed suit against American Security Insurance Co., over a wind-damage claim. He had hired a public adjusting firm and assigned benefits to Ryan Construction Co., which also sued American Security and settled in 2017. The public adjuster sued Green in 2022, contending that the homeowner never paid the $6,257 he had agreed to pay from the insurance proceeds.

In March of this year, Green filed suit against Doordash, a food delivery company, and State Farm Mutual Auto Insurance, alleging that a Doordash driver caused an accident that injured Green.

Green also was charged with assault in October of 2022, but no further action was taken, court records show. He faced a battery charge in 2007.

And in 1999, a man by the name of Damacio Covon Green, 29 at the time, was the dean of students at a Miami charter vocational-technical school when he was arrested for having consensual sex with a 16-year-old student, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel newspaper. The girl went to police after she said she regretted the two encounters, the newspaper reported.

Court records in the case were not available online Wednesday.

In the recent insurance fraud case, Green posted a $7,500 bond on April 10. An arraignment hearing has been set for May 5.

“Huge thank you to my fraud detectives and the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office for their hard work in this case and working every day to keep Florida fraud free,” Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis said in a statement.