Northern Indiana Woman Pleads Guilty in Insurance Scheme

A northern Indiana woman has pleaded guilty to mail fraud and admitted taking part in a scheme to collect insurance payouts by staging fake car accidents.

Thirty-year-old Shanise Kelley of Michigan City says in her plea agreement on one felony count of mail fraud that she and others staged car accidents and filed false insurance claims between 2006 and 2009 in northwestern Indiana and Illinois.

The Times of Munster reports Kelley pledges in her amended plea agreement filed Friday to cooperate with prosecutors in other cases.

She faces up to 20 years in prison on the mail fraud charge, but is asking for leniency because of her cooperation with federal authorities.