A Minnesota man and Trump supporter who vandalized his own property to pretend to be a hate crime victim has pleaded guilty to scamming insurers and GoFundMe donors in the charade.
30-year-old Denis Vladmirovich Molla of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota on Tuesday for collecting insurance money and donations after setting fire to his own camper, which had a Trump 2020 flag on it on Sept. 23, 2020. The man also spray painted “Biden 2020,” “BLM” (the acronym for Black Lives Matter) and an Antifa symbol on his garage door, according to the DOJ.
Molla, who was indicted in July, had filed a $300,000 claim to a home and auto insurance company identified in the court filings as “Victim Insurance Company A.” He was bold in his scheme and even accused the insurance company of defrauding him when it pushed back on some of his claims.
The company gave him $61,000.
Molla also collected about $17,000 from the GoFundMe campaigns he had launched to help him recover from the “hate crime” he claimed to have suffered.
Under the sentencing guidelines in Molla’s plea agreement, prosecutors have recommended about three to four years in prison (specifically 41 to 51 months), a fine range of $15,000 to $150,000, and at least one year of supervised release, with a maximum of three years.
However, the judge overseeing the case, David S. Doty, will ultimately decide Molla’s sentence at his discretion during a hearing that has yet to be scheduled.
According to local outlet KARE 11, Molla was “sobbing” during much of the hearing on Tuesday.
Read the plea agreement below:
