Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul and Queens County District Attorney Melinda Katz Announce Sentencings for Conspirators of Staged Car Crashes on New York[...]

Governor Kathy Hochul and Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today the sentencing of 53-year-old Jaime Huiracocha and 34-year-old Victor Murillo, both of Brooklyn. The two were found guilty of charges related to staging three crashes on New York City highways and seeking fraudulent insurance payouts for damages and injuries. The investigation was conducted by the NYPD with the assistance of investigators from the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS).

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Thank you very much. It's great to be back here alongside one of the greatest district attorneys we've ever had. If there is a case that needs to be solved or prosecuted, investigated, you put it in the hands of Melinda Katz, you know you're going to get the right result. And I thank her and her entire team here at the district attorney's office, NYPD, for what they do, our investigators, and also the Department of Financial Services for their key role in bringing to light these challenges that have led us to legislation. Again, speaking of legislation, I want to thank David Weprin for his leadership in helping us get this through the legislature as well. David, it's making a real, profound difference, so thank you.

But as you heard from the District Attorney, today we're sending a strong message to would-be fraudsters everywhere: If you stage crashes, if you defraud New Yorkers, if you endangered lives, we will find you, we will prosecute you, and make you pay the price. Because your reckless, illegal behavior has been driving up insurance rates in the state for far too long. Who pays the cost? We all do. By cracking down, we're not just getting dangerous criminals off the roads, we're putting money back in the pockets of law-abiding drivers.

Again, thank you so much for bringing these individuals to justice. I've seen these videos, especially the one that did go viral. I don't have teenagers anymore, but I'm usually alerted by younger staff of what I need to see on social media, so I knew about this. But every time you see this, it's so brazen, it's so disturbing, it's so shocking that people would actually put themselves in danger, and other motorists. Just this callous disregard for human life is what we see on display in these videos. And the shock and fear in the woman's voice when the car reverses and rams into her, it's so unexpected, so out of the ordinary, and again, the word is - has to be shocking. But no New Yorker who's going about their day, driving to work, taking their kids to school, should ever have to worry about this.

But the fraudsters have been preying on a flawed system for a long time. Over the past five years, the State of New York has seen a tripling, a three-digit increase, in fraud-related staged crashes. In 2023, we had 1,700 staged crashes, the second highest number in the nation. In 2025, DFS, Department of Financial Services, received 43,000 - 43,000 suspicious reports related to auto insurance, an 80% increase in five years. This year, when this data came to light at the end of the year, I said, "Enough is enough." We took on special interests. We needed to, and won. Strengthened our laws. And really insulating the personal injury system from abuse, and making it easier to prosecute staged crashes.

And like with this case, we're not just going after the drivers. As you heard from the DA, there's a whole ecosystem involved. It is lawyers, it is doctors, it is people that are willing to do this, but also they've been getting away with it for so long. There was no deterrent to stop them. Our reforms will make it easier to hunt down and prosecute the ringleaders who orchestrate these schemes, recruit participants with the promise of big payouts, and we're increasing criminal penalties so when we catch you, the punishment will fit the crime.

We've also convened a new cross-agency task force with one sole mission, and that is to crack down on auto insurance fraud. Over at the Department of Financial Services, we're rebuilding our Insurance Fraud Bureau from the ground up. We're bringing in leading experts with expertise from Homeland Security and the FBI, professionals who've spent their entire careers building complex cases like these, and we're providing specialized training to State Police investigators and law enforcement all across the state. We just convened the law enforcement in July. We trained over 270 individuals so they know how to spot these fraudsters. As the District Attorney said, it's also about supporting our district attorneys' offices.

We've been very supportive of the DA's, with enormous sums of money. We stood here with your effort on cracking down on retail theft, for example. But among all the other issues you have to deal with, this could not have been a priority because you didn't have the resource[s]. Other offices are saying, "If you give us the money, we'll be able to dedicate the personnel to this." And you've been very successful in assisting with us. So we see a problem - whether it's retail theft or the need to change the bail laws or, as you brought to our attention, the discovery laws, or even this now - we'll always be at the vanguard of supporting our local law enforcement as we have.

This is all about protecting public safety, protecting New Yorkers' wallets, and also, because of all this, we have had the highest auto insurance premiums in the nation. Culmination of these factors - the laws that we have on the books that allow for jackpot payouts, whether or not someone is even in these staged crashes or whether or not they're involved in some - a drunk driver going through a traffic light causes an accident, and they end up getting a huge jackpot payout because of the laws we have on the books. No more in the State of New York.

So all this money is back in people's pockets. We think this should reduce premiums by about $300 at least or more. That means more money back in pockets, especially at back to school time for parents to go back, and unfortunately that's another topic, but have to face the high cost of everything because of the tariffs. I digress a little bit, but it's frustrating. But families are under a lot of stress. And for them to know that part of this is driven by criminal activity that they have nothing to do with, and they're paying the price - this is when it all ends, right here, in places like the district attorney's office.

And again, I thank the leadership of Melinda Katz and her entire team. Thank you very much.