It’s hard to imagine that someone who has seen a jail cell from the right side (the outside, that is), would risk doing something to land himself on the wrong side. So it’s disheartening to hear about one California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer who was caught “engaging in physically strenuous outdoor activities” while collecting workers’ compensation benefits for an alleged on-the-job injury that, he claimed, prevented him from working even in an office. According to a recent report from the Sacramento Bee, the offending officer was caught on film taking his family on several camping and boating trips, “hooking up a boat trailer,” “launching the boat” and generally being “very physically active” during the two-year period in which he collected more than $180,000 in workers’ compensation benefits.
The former officer had first filed a claim for disability relief back in 2012, after suffering injuries that reportedly were due to a scuffle with a person resisting arrest. For years he insisted that the injuries he sustained were so debilitating that he could not even work “desk duty” and he continued to collect disability checks until some of his fellow officers assigned to traffic duty noticed him “towing a camping trailer and a ski boat.” (But pushing papers was too much?!) The CHP’s Workers’ Compensation Fraud Unit soon launched an investigation. (Bad news for this beach boy.)
After all of this, the officer was brought in for a deposition, in which he was asked point-blank if he had even attempted any physical activities while receiving disability checks. Not only did he testify that he had not, he went so far as to assert that he wished he’d been able to. (Lying to fellow officers—a rookie mistake.) Ultimately, he pleaded guilty to workers’ compensation insurance fraud and was sentenced to serve 60 days in jail and ordered to repay all of the money he stole from the CHP and the State Compensation Insurance Fund, as well as investigation costs—debts totaling more than $183,000.
Police officers who break the law—and steal from the very state they’ve taken an oath to serve—get to see the wrong side of the iron bars. Bravo to the state of California for holding this officer accountable!
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