Man accused of destroying his Mercedes Benz to ripoff insurance company

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office has arrested a man and accused him of trying to rip off his insurance company by destroying his own vehicle.

According to deputies, Ivan Gomez had reported a car burglary; however, once deputies arrived at WSP Tires in Tice, they found a Mercedes Benz with the windows smashed and the leather seats slashed.

Gomez claimed that his car was damaged after dropping off the vehicle for an oil change.

“A suspect is reporting that his car was vandalized, with almost $25,000 worth of damage and the tires, windows broken, it appears like someone had done this, and he wanted to report it to his insurance company,” said Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno. “As we start to piece it together, it just doesn’t make sense.”

According to investigators, Gomez still owed $45,000 on his car when he submitted the claim for the damage.

“So everything is starting to point in a different direction. This wasn’t a random act of criminal mischief. This was the suspect himself, and we, along the way, could identify him,” Marceno said.

Detectives recovered surveillance video from a business next door.

WINK News spoke with a woman who works there and saw a video of the man brutalizing his Benz.

“He came in, parked on the side of the property and then got out … and you can hear it in the video: he hit and kept hitting the glass,” said the witness, “and that little bit of time, he was slashing his car or the inside of his vehicle as well.”

Detectives charged Gomez with falsifying a police report and criminal mischief, but what one person does can impact many.

“It’s important to understand that when someone does this, it’s why our insurance rates go up,” Marceno said, “because when someone makes a false claim, and we have to pay that, overall, we all pay for that in the end.”

Marceno said he is proud of his deputies for listening to their instincts and following this case.