Complaints spark arrest of Villa Park auto shop owner

A Villa Park auto body shop owner is charged with insurance fraud and operating without a license after a police investigation sparked by numerous complaints from customers and former employees.

Police arrested John Franko, 48, of Addison on Monday at King Auto, 738 N. Yale, Villa Park, and removed several vehicles and documents from the business.

Franko was charged with insurance fraud for allegedly submitting a claim to his insurance company for a vehicle he reported stolen to the Chicago Police Department. The vehicle was never stolen but was dismantled and discarded at the business under Franko's direction, police said.

Franko has been selling vehicles without a valid license since last October and repairing them without a license since March 2007, police said.

Lt. Michael Lay of the Villa Park Police Department said additional charges are likely. "It's not going to be today or tomorrow; it's going to take us a while to go through the files," he said.

One of Franko's alleged victims is Charlene Collier-Gomez, 27, of Glendale Heights. She said Franko told her that her 2004 Nissan Altima needed $7,000 in repairs following a hit-and-run accident in September. She said she couldn't afford to fix the car, and she agreed to let him junk it. Last month, she was notified of toll violations accumulated by her car and matching her license plate number.

Collier-Gomez said she went to the auto shop herself last week, saw the car and took a photo of it with her cell phone.

Her case is part of the continuing investigation, Lay said.

Collier-Gomez, whose work as a phlebotomist requires her to drive to various work sites, wound up filing for bankruptcy after losing her car.

"I am hopeful to get it (the car) back, but I'm not expecting it," she said. "I hope I can get the tickets in my name taken care of and clean my credit up and get a new car."

In March, Franko was charged with filing a false police report of a stolen vehicle and is curently out on bond for that offense.

Franko was being held at the DuPage County jail on $200,000 bond on the insurance fraud charge and $200,000 bond for charges of theft and forgery, both felonies. He was also charged with being an unlicensed automotive used parts dealer and an unlicensed used motor vehicle dealer, both misdemeanors.