Saving a bundle on car insurance wasn’t enough for one NYPD officer, who was busted by the feds for torching his Range Rover and two other cars to collect at least $34,000 in reimbursement checks from GEICO, federal authorities said Wednesday.
Carlos Becker promised to pay off two men if they helped him crash and burn his gray 2008 Range Rover Sport in September 2012, which law enforcement discovered with broken windows in Laurelton, Queens, court papers allege.
Becker called GEICO and the police to report his car as stolen after he claimed it went missing from his parking spot the day before. Later that month, he submitted claims to GEICO and received two checks totaling $34,260 for the car, which had been doused in gasoline and torched.
Becker pulled the same stunt twice before — getting an accomplice to crash an Audi sedan in 2012 and torch a BMW last year, the complaint charges.
In his insurance claim for the BMW, Becker said the car’s battery caught fire as he was driving — although a Fire Department probe found the likely cause was arson, court papers says.
One of Becker’s associates told feds that Becker was “tired of the BMW” and that if anything were to happen, he’d use the insurance proceeds to buy another car.
Becker was busted after his two cronies turned on him, secretly recording conversations for the government.
He’ll appear Friday in Brooklyn federal court. His lawyer declined to comment.
Becker, a highway cop, was the subject of a $150 million civil lawsuit filed by a woman who claims he sexually assaulted her after pulling her over on DWI charges in 2013.
He was cleared of official misconduct charges and the suit was dismissed
