A Warren County, North Carolina man has been charged with insurance fraud for allegedly seeking an insurance payment from a restaurant where he claims he found cockroaches in his food.
Investigators say it was one of four similar cockroach complaints he has filed against eateries.
North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey announced the arrest of Melvin Junior Jones of Norlina. Jones was charged with one count of insurance fraud and one count of attempting to obtain property by false pretense. Both are felonies.
Special agents with the Department of Insurance Criminal Investigations Division have accused Jones of falsely reporting that he found two cockroac
hes in his food at a Creedmoor KFC. His insurance claim sought approximately $4,000 in payment from the restaurant’s business policy with PMA Insurance Group.
Investigators said they discovered that Jones had also filed similar claims regarding two separate Waffle House locations and a Denny’s Restaurant. The four instances occurred between Aug. 15, 2024, and Aug. 7, 2025.
Jones was released under a $40,000 secured bond pending future court dates.
“Insurance fraud is not a victimless crime,” Causey said. “It hits all of us in the pocket through higher premiums and higher prices.”
The high court’s decision, in a side issue in Foor vs. State Farm, tempered a lower court’s order requiring State Farm to share closely held and trade-secret i
nformation on how damage estimates are revised or reduced. The Bullock County Circuit Court’s 2025 decision, in a homeowners’ roof claim dispute, is the latest skirm
ish in the years-long, multi-state war of words between adjusters and policyholder advocates on one side and a few large insurers on the other.
“While we would have preferred a different outcome, we appreciate the meaningful safeguards the Court placed around confidential information,” a State Farm spokesperson said in an email Thursday. “The ruling requires r
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ecipients of confidential information to abide by the protective order, and preserves the court’s authority to enforce those protections, including requirements to return or destroy materials when those cases conclude.”
The lower court’s decision, allowing significant sharing of confidential claims handling procedures, had generated widespread concern among insurers, business grou
ps and legal organizations. It resulted in no fewer than three friend-of-the-court briefs that urged the high court to overturn or rein in the circuit court’s ruling.
“The ‘sharing’ provision in the (lower court’s) order relinquishes near-complete control of some of State Farm’s most sensitive information to plaintiffs’ counsel for th
eir unfettered, nationwide use,” reads an amicus curiae brief filed in the appeal by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Tort Reform Association.
Attorneys with the Alabama Free and Fair Enterprise Institute also penned an amicus brief, noting that the Attorney Information Exchange Group, based in Bi
rmingham, runs one of the largest clearinghouses for documents gained in litigation, for other litigants’ use.
“…Once confidential information is outside the control of the court, there is no limit as to how the information could be used by others,” attorney Ed Haden wrote for the Institute.
