BATON ROUGE - State police arrested a group of people in a haphazard scheme to get an insurance payout by crashing a rental truck. 

In March 2019 Louisiana State Police Insurance Fraud Unit received a complaint from RepWest Insurance, U-Haul's liability insurer, regarding a potentially fraudulent insurance claim from Charity McDonald, Quentin Pollard, Lue Pollard, Jennifer McMorris and Norman McNew. 

On Nov. 10, 2018 McDonald was driving a U-Haul truck rented out of Natchez, Mississippi when she rear-ended a 2006 GMC Sierra driven by Jennifer McMorris with Quentin Pollard and Lue Pollard inside. A fifth individual, Norman McNew, also claimed to be in U-Haul at the time.

The crash occurred on Airline Highway near Beechwood Street.

The group told police no one was seriously hurt at the time, and both vehicles sustained only minor to moderate damage. The rental was later returned to a U-Haul location on Airline Highway in Baton Rouge.

A week after the crash, Quentin Pollard filed a claim with U-Haul regarding the incident, and an injury attorney representing all involved reached out to the company the following month. 

RepWest found details surrounding the crash to be suspicious and hired a private investigator to look into the case. That investigation soon revealed that everyone involved in the crash knew each other prior to the wreck.

McDonald would go on to admit to the investigator that the crash was staged so that they could file a fraudulent insurance claim against U-Haul. McDonald said Quentin Pollard planned out the entire scheme, adding that she knew Pollard through his father, Lue Pollard, who is her landlord.

Investigators learned that a week before the crash Quentin Pollard and his girlfriend, Jennifer McMorris, travelled from Baton Rouge to McDonald's home in Mississippi where McMorris, Quentin, and Lue Pollard requested McDonald to rent a U-Haul truck for the scheme. McDonald said Quentin Pollard claimed to have staged other accidents in the past and that it would be "easy money."

Quentin Pollard gave McDonald a pre-paid debit card to rent the vehicle and group met in Baton Rouge, where Pollard laid out the rest of the scheme, according to state police.

McDonald said she was instructed to rear-end the other vehicle when it hit the brakes and act like she didn't know anyone from the other vehicle. It was also discovered McNew was never in either vehicle and had been picked up in the U-Haul after the fact. 

In Jan. 2019, RepWest received a letter from the group's injury attorney saying he was no longer representing anyone involved. After that, the company reached out to Louisiana State Police. 

Quentin Pollard, Lue Pollard, Jennifer McMorris and Norman McNew were all booked into East Baton Rouge Parish Prison for auto insurance fraud, among other charges. No arrest warrant has been filed for McDonald at this time.