Greenbelt, Maryland – A federal judge sentenced a former Anne Arundel County police officer for his role in an auto-insurance fraud scheme. Judge Lydia Griggsby sentenced Jaron Earl Taylor, 32, of Ft. Washington, Maryland, to three years of probation, with the first five months served on home detention, for conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Judge Griggsby also ordered Taylor to pay $38,670 in restitution to the United States Automobile Association.
Co-conspirator Michael Anthony Owen, Jr., 38, of Accokeek, Maryland, previously pled guilty to falsifying records, in connection with the conspiracy.Kelly O. Hayes, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, announced the sentence with Special Agent in Charge Jimmy Paul, FBI – Baltimore Field Office, and Chief George Nader, Prince George’s County Police Department (PGPD).According to court documents, between August 2018 and February 2020, Taylor and Owen, who were Anne Arundel County Police Department and PGPD officers, respectively, at the time, conspired with fellow police officers to engage in mail and wire fraud. Taylor and Owen, along with officers Candace Tyler, 39, of Bowie, Maryland, who pled guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud; Conrad D’Haiti, 56, of La Plata, Maryland, who pled guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud; and Davion Percy, 41, of Suitland, Maryland, who a jury convicted at trial in June 2026, of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, and others, devised a scheme for insurance companies to pay out the remaining financing costs of unwanted vehicles.
Members of the conspiracy reported fictitious losses to insurers to obtain money or avoid paying off vehicles that were now worth less than the amount owed on them. The co-conspirators used their statuses as police officers to assist each other’s claims by writing false police reports. Then co-conspirators submitted fictitious police reports to insurers to validate the claim. The false police reports were intended to impede, obstruct, or influence subsequent investigations of the false insurance claims.
In August 2018, Taylor and Owen staged the theft of Taylor’s Chevrolet Tahoe. After Taylor filed a fraudulent police report, Taylor and Owen stripped the vehicle and drove it deep into the woods of a Maryland State Highway property near Largo, Maryland. Taylor then made a false claim to the United Services Automobile Association (USAA) for the loss, for which USAA paid out a total of $38,670.Then in January 2020, Owen assisted D’Haiti in avoiding payment on the loan balance of a Jaguar XKR. In cooperation with D’Haiti and Percy, Owen devised a scheme to fake the vehicle’s theft.
On January 4, D’Haiti parked his Jaguar behind Marlow Heights Shopping Center where Percy worked as police chief.D’Haiti then paid Percy $350 to arrange for another co-conspirator to tow the vehicle and extensively vandalize it for the purpose of creating a total insurance loss. Tyler subsequently filed the fictitious police report which D’Haiti used to substantiate his claim against Liberty Mutual Insurance. In February 2020, Liberty Mutual paid the Jaguar’s lienholder, Navy Federal Credit Union, $17,585, on the false claim.Additionally, in January 2020, Taylor and Owen assisted with disposing of an Infiniti sedan to help a co-conspirator avoid making further payments on the vehicle while on extended overseas duty. The co-conspirator gave Taylor $1,000 via CashApp to stage the theft.
Taylor then forwarded the money to Owen who filed a false police report with PGPD, stating the vehicle was stolen. But Taylor, Owen, and others moved the car to the top floor of a Camp Springs, Maryland, apartment-complex parking garage. The co-conspirators attempted to conceal the car’s identity by removing the vehicle’s license plates and replacing them with different ones registered to another vehicle. Then the owner and co-conspirator filed a claim with GEICO that was eventually denied on grounds of fraud.Owen’s sentencing is scheduled for Tuesday, August 18, at 2:30 p.m.U.S.
Attorney Hayes commended the FBI and PGPD for their work in the investigation. Ms. Hayes also thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph Baldwin, Adeyemi Adenrele, and Caroline Schechinger who are prosecuting the case.For more information about the Maryland U.S.
Attorney’s Office, its priorities, and resources available to report fraud, visit justice.gov/usao-md. # # #