The jig is up.
An obvious slip-and-fall scammer tried to money in by suing a Bronx grocery store after he “fell” on a puddle of water in one of many aisles — till the shop’s safety digital camera uncovered the ruse.
Now, even his lawyer has dropped him.
“My insurance will go all the way to the top because he’s suing me — but I caught him,” Miguel Luna, proprietor of Positive Fare grocery store in East Tremont, advised The Put up. “I need to put this man in jail.
“This would cause me to raise my prices. But I don’t want to do that. I don’t want my people to pay more,” Luna mentioned. “This will help everybody, because they are going to try this at other stores, not only supermarkets because it’s easy money.”
The video footage of the Jan. 22 incident obtained by The Put up exhibits an unidentified particular person scoping out the scene and spilling water on the ground inside one of many aisles then leaving.
A number of minutes later an aged couple is purchasing on the similar spot when Felix Del Aguila walks up and begins to seize bottled water from the shelf — maintaining a tally of the couple.
He locations two 12-packs of bottled water and a bigger jug on prime, then, taking one final have a look at the aged pair, seems to fall on the bottom — with customers and retailer staff coming to his help.
Del Aguila will get up and grabs at his again then is seen hobbling away.
“He did not look like he was hurt to me,” retailer supervisor Jeovany Perez mentioned. “It appeared he simply needed to go away. He didn’t name for an ambulance, the police.
“I got suspicious and I went to look at the cameras to see who threw the water there, because there was no water there before,” Perez mentioned. “When I checked, I saw what happened. Maybe that’s why he wanted to leave fast, because it was a scam.”
However on Feb. 2, the shop received a discover from a Large Apple lawyer saying that Del Aguila would “pursue a claim for personal injuries arising out of and as a result of an accident.”
Nonetheless, the lawyer, who requested to not be named, rapidly dropped Del Aguila after smelling a rat.
Del Aguila couldn’t be reached for remark Wednesday regardless of repeated makes an attempt.
Courtroom data present that he has a minimum of one prior private damage lawsuit that settled out of court docket.
Del Aguila claimed within the criticism that he was injured when he fell in a Key Meals grocery store on Randall Avenue within the Bronx on March 24, 2017.
The lawsuit, filed in September 2018, claimed he “sustained serious injuries” that brought about him “pain, shock, mental anguish,” and that the accidents “will be permanent.”
The go well with price that retailer loads.
“Four years ago my premium was $35,000,” Pedro Goico, the proprietor of the shop, which does enterprise as Golden Mango, griped to The Put up Wednesday. “At present it’s $160,000.
“They have up to three years to file so they wait one or two years before we get the summons to go to court,”Goico mentioned. “By then we don’t have the movies, nothing to show our case. The insurance coverage corporations are saying we’d moderately settle out of court docket than go for a jury trial.
“They are crooks,” he mentioned.
