Six Wake County residents have been charged with staging three auto crashes to collect insurance money.

State Department of Insurance investigators say Michael Spina of Fuquay-Varina was involved in all three wrecks as a driver or passenger, and the other five participants were his friends or relatives.

The crashes took place from November to April, according to the insurance department. Three insurance companies paid more than $41,000 in claims related to the accidents, and more were being processed when a GEICO investigator determined that one claim was fraudulent.

Spina, 31, faces several charges, including three counts each of obtaining property by false pretense, insurance fraud and attempting to obtain property by false pretense. The other five face similar charges: Daniel Adams, 23, and Clifton Ferrell, 20, of Raleigh; Samantha Ferrell, 23, and Richard Leblanc, 34, of Fuquay-Varina; and Christopher Short, 27, of Cary. All six were arrested Aug. 19.

Cary shopping center bought

From Staff Reports

New York real estate firm Clarion Partners paid $15.7 million for Cary Park Town Center this week, according to Wake County property records.

The center, at Green Level Church and Carpenter Fire Station roads, includes about 120,000 square feet of retail space and opened in 2007. It's anchored by a Harris Teeter. Other tenants include Rex Family Medical Practice and CVS.

The seller was Charlotte-based Lincoln Harris, which developed the property.

Investors have been scooping up retail assets across the Triangle of late.

During the second quarter, $81.2 million in retail properties changed hands, a 186 percent increase over the same period a year ago, according to Real Capital Analytics.

SAS puts hold on hiring

From Staff Reports

Business software giant SAS has put the brakes on hiring after expanding its workforce by 4 percent this year.

Jim Goodnight, co-founder and CEO of the Cary company, told Inc. magazine that the company's expenses have been growing higher than its revenue.

. "I think we've got over 300 open positions right now," he was quoted as saying. "But what I do in this situation is, I just call HR and say, 'Hey, don't hire any more people.' "

A SAS spokeswoman, Desiree Adkins, said Tuesday in an email message that Goodnight "always looks at hiring at this time of year and frequently slows it down in the second half of the year. It's not unusual for SAS (or any business) to do this. Particularly when we've already exceeded our average yearly employee growth when we're only half-way through the year."

Goodnight told Inc. that keeping employee growth in line with revenue growth has enabled SAS to weather five recessions since he co-founded the company in 1976.

"As a software company, 75 percent of our cost is people," Goodnight said. "So if I can control costs by not hiring, it's fairly easy to keep things in check."

The privately held company has 12,117 employees worldwide, including 4,757 at itsCary headquarters, according to its website.

Last year, the company's revenue rose 5.2 percent to a record $2.43 billion. It doesn't disclose profit. The Inc. interview with Goodnight is in the magazine's annual report on the nation's 500 fastest-growing companies.