Driving Misses Daisies: Staged Car Accident in Flower Shop?

In a federal indictment that was released on October 13th,  four men men from the Mahoning Valley were named and accused of staging a car accident in Boardman at a local flower shop so they could collect the insurance money.  Or perhaps we should say “in” a local flower shop.  More specifically, by crashing their vehicle into the actual flower shop.

According to the Youngstown Vindicator, James J. Landis, Thomas V. Franco, Paul “Jeff” Amon and Joseph P. Amon were named in the indictment. Landis, who owns Mum’s the Word Florist, is accused of conspiring with the Amon brothers, who own M and J Properties Group Inc, which is a construction business located in Canfield.

The indictment alleges that Landis told Joseph Amon about financial difficulties at the florist shop. About a week later, Paul Amon returned with Franco to Landis’ shop, and the three agreed that Franco would drive a truck into the shop, pretending it was an accident, according to the indictment.

Then, on January 27, 2010, Franco drove the vehicle into the florist shop, later receiving $11,925.27 from Grange Insurance for the damaged vehicle. Records state that Travelers Insurance gave Landis $73,423.57, and Westford Insurance sustained a loss of $9,056.33 from claims that were related to the crash.

The men are all charged with conspiracy, wire fraud and two counts of mail fraud.

For Paul Amon, this is definitely not his first run-in with the law. Not only has he been in court before due to the fact that he was a special deputy for the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department back in the early 1980s, but he was also sentenced in 1987 to four years in prison for conspiracy to distribute cocaine.

Several years later, he and his brother were also among the suspects that were considered by Liberty police in the January 1993 murder of their parents, Peter J. and Tressa Amon. No evidence was ever found to support that claim, and the brothers offered a $10,000 reward for information in case. According to files, the murders remain unsolved.

Landis, also not a newbie to the court system, was charged with possessing a firearm while being prohibited from doing so under a protection order from August of 2010 as part of the Violence, Gun Reduction Interdiction Program (V-GRIP). According to court records, he had been the subject of a protection order through the common pleas court that prohibited him from harassing, stalking or threatening an intimate partner.