Officials with the US Attorney's Office for the District of Eastern WA (Federal) say a Kennewick man will learn how many years he will spend in prison when he is sentenced in January of 2023.

   Man pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, actual wire fraud, and healthcare (insurance) fraud.

Ali Abed Yaser, according to the FBI and Federal officials, staged a fake accident in May of 2019 in an effort to collect insurance money, presumably to help pay off his vehicle.

According to the US Attorney's Office:

"...the FBI discovered that on May 28, 2019, Yaser staged an automobile accident on County Route 12 in Benton County, Washington.  The staged accident involved a Hyundai Sonata, driven by another individual being purposely driven into a Lexus IS driven by Yaser.  At the time, a credit union had a lien of approximately $30,018.78 on the Lexus.  Yaser subsequently filed fraudulent insurance claims representing that he was involved in an accident and suffered bodily injury and wage loss.  Yaser was never injured because he was not even in the vehicle at impact.  An insurance company paid Yaser and others approximately $126,990."

The FBI began to investigate him and others in February of that year, after receiving information that these people were involved in a fake accident scheme.

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During the course of the investigation through 2020 and beyond, Yaser attempted to obstruct the investigation by threatening a potential witness, accusing an FBI agent of taking a $20K bribe, and tampering with evidence--even threatening to kill what the FBI said was a confidential human source (CHS) basically an undercover operative.

The investigation lasted through September 2020 before arrests were made.  Yasar will learn how long he will be in prison at his January sentencing.

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