TACOMA, Wash. (AP) -- A Tacoma man charged with insurance fraud after using photos from the Internet to file a $20,000 insurance claim for a dead cat that didn't exist has pleaded not guilty.
KOMO News reports that 29-year-old Yevgeniy Samsonov's trial was scheduled to start in September at his Wednesday court hearing.
Samsonov was involved in a minor traffic accident in 2009, and the other driver's insurer paid some $3,500 to cover chiropractic treatment. More than two years later, Samsonov claimed that his cat Tom had been killed in the accident and he sought $20,000 in compensation.
Samsonov submitted photos of a cat, but an insurance representative found that the pictures had come from the Internet.
If convicted, Samsonov could get a year behind bars.
