"Jose Vicente Badillo, 29, was sentenced on Feb. 12 to 60 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit arson. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California said Badillo devised and directed a plan in 2023 to set fire to rival companies' tow trucks to drive more business to his own firms, Auto Towing and Specialty Towing, and to retaliate against competitors for perceived wrongs."
"According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Badillo staged an accident on Guadalupe Canyon Parkway in San Mateo County involving a Sterling tow truck and a vehicle carrier transporting four vehicles as part of the insurance fraud scheme. He also created fake tow records for at least 18 vehicles and orchestrated at least nine additional iterations of the scheme, causing insurance companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses."
Jose Vicente Badillo, 29, received a 60-month federal prison sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit arson for directing a 2023 plan to burn competitors' tow trucks. The scheme targeted six trucks owned by four competing companies during 2023. Badillo recruited others to carry out the arsons to drive business to his firms and retaliate for perceived wrongs. He also received a concurrent 27-month sentence for conspiracy in fraudulent auto insurance claims from 2017 through 2021, involving staged collisions, fake tow records for at least 18 vehicles, and insurers' losses of hundreds of thousands. Judges imposed three years of supervised release and ordered restitution.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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