Norfolk woman sentenced for staging auto accidents

NORFOLK

Calling the use of children to stage car crashes "one of the most disturbing acts" he's heard of, a federal judge sentenced a Norfolk woman on Monday to seven years in federal prison - above the recommended guideline range.

In a tearful plea for leniency, Teresa Gallop, 41, argued for no prison time, citing an abusive upbringing, sexual abuse and teen pregnancies. She pleaded to stay home to care for her children and other young relatives.

However, with 60 prior felony convictions, including manslaughter in the

shooting death of the father of two of her sons, Gallop did not make for a sympathetic defendant.

Her pleas were "not persuasive to the court," U.S. District Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr. told Gallop.

A federal court jury earlier this year found Gallop guilty of staging auto accidents for $50,000 in insurance money, using children as young as 4 pretending to be victims. The jury found her guilty of one count of health care fraud and six counts of filing false statements.

Prosecutors showed that in 2002, Gallop directed her then-16-year-old son, Delanio Vick, and another accomplice, Michael Davis, to ram two cars together. Gallop then put the children - her 4-year-old son, her 12-year-old son and a 9-year-old nephew - into the vehicles and had them pretend to be injured.

Vick, currently serving a state prison term for an unrelated offense, testified at the trial that the crashes were his idea. Davis, however, testified under a grant of immunity that Gallop planned the entire fraud.

In her plea for leniency, Gallop apologized and said she has spent the past several years trying to turn her life around. She and her attorney argued for a minimum sentence of five years of home confinement.

"I'm just trying to correct the decisions from the past and live a more productive life," she said.

Nevertheless, federal prosecutors showed that Gallop continued to commit fraud even after the staged crashes. They presented evidence that she submitted another insurance claim for $11,000, saying some 450 items were stolen from inside her car after it was towed from the scene of a staged crash.

Gallop's sister, Joyce Vick, also took the stand and testified that in 2007 Gallop stole her identity, obtained power of attorney in her name, opened a checking account in her name and signed a lease for an expensive townhouse.

"No punishment she has received to date has deterred her" from committing crimes, Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine Martin told the judge.

Martin asked the judge to sentence her to as much as 10 years in prison. She noted that, despite 60 felony convictions plus another 30 misdemeanor convictions, Gallop has never spent more than five years in prison - and that was for killing someone.

In 1988, Gallop shot and killed the father of her two oldest sons. Gallop told the court that the man, her boyfriend Dennis J. Jones, abused her. She said the shooting was an accident.

Gallop also wrote a lengthy letter to the judge outlining her abusive upbringing at the hands of an alcoholic and violent father, who once tried to gun down her mother. She said she was repeatedly molested as a young girl and gave birth to her first child at 15.

"Basically, her life has been a cycle of abuse and hardship," her attorney, Assistant Public Defender Keith Kimball, told the judge.

Morgan was unswayed. Gallop's past incarcerations "did nothing to deter her," he said.

"Her recent conduct shows she's still doing it," Morgan said.

Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com