ohmidog!

After collecting $3,500 from the insurance company of a woman whose car rear-ended him, a Washington man apparently decided to return to the well — this time informing her insurer that his cat died in the accident, too.

Although more than two years had passed, he asked for $20,000 for the death of his beloved cat, Tom, and, when requested, he sent the insurance company some photos.

As it turned out, the only place he’d spent anytime with the cat, who he claimed to love “like a son,” was on Wikipedia.

Yevgeniy Samsonov, 29, was charged with insurance fraud and attempted theft, according to the Seattle Times.

According to the charges filed in Pierce County,  Samsonov didn’t have a cat, and the photos he submitted to bolster his claim had both been copied from the Internet.

“We’ve handled some pretty unusual cases, but this is one of the stranger ones,” state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler said in a news release.

In his initial claim, Samsonov said he required chiropractic treatment after his car was rear-ended in March 2009 while stopped at a traffic light in Tacoma. The other driver told her insurance company, Pemco, that her foot had slipped off the brake.

Two years later, Samsonov asked Pemco for more money to compensate him for his lost cat. The insurer sent Samsonov a check for $50, but Samsonov said, given the cat’s intense sentimental value, that didn’t begin to cover his loss.

When Pemco agents asked Samsonov for photos of the cat , he submitted two, which he claimed to have taken himself, according to court documents. Then a Pemco employee did a Google search and turned up the same images Samsonov had submitted, according to the insurer.  The two pictures turned out to be of different cats, one from Wikipedia, and one from another website.

They refused to pay him any more money, and revoked the $50  check. Samsonov appealed to the state insurance commissioner’s office.

That led to an investigation and the filing of charges against him.