Isn’t it wild that some people would rather risk prison time than face the consequences of their decision-making? The Sacramento Bee reports that a husband and wife attempted to get the government to pay the long-term healthcare costs of a gunshot the man suffered following an altercation at a night club.
According to the report, the man was working as an officer with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation when he and his wife visited a Los Angeles-area swingers club. A disagreement between them and another couple led to the husband being shot and paralyzed in the parking lot – an injury that they later tried to pass off as an “on the job” injury, so that they could collect workers’ compensation insurance.
The couple was dishonest from the get-go. First, they told police that they did not know or recognize the shooter, even though their altercation with him began inside the club. (“After a very personal direct interaction.”) After the husband filed a workers’ compensation claim and the wife filed a lien for workers’ compensation benefits based on care of her husband, they testified under oath that they didn’t remember the name of the club where the shooting occurred, nor could they offer a motive. (“It takes two to tango and apparently two to lie under oath.”) The husband then took things a step further and changed his story, to make it seem as though the shooter may have been a parolee with whom he once had contact.
So imagine if this couple succeeded in convincing the government that something as serious as a shooting was “work related”, when it actually had nothing to do with work? The husband would collect more than $3,000 each month for the rest of his life, and his wife would continue receiving that money after his death. He initially requested a whopping $4 million from the State Compensation Insurance Fund. His wife demanded an additional $271,000 for her services, as his caregiver, and indicated that she may have requested more.
Alas, they were unsuccessful. After both were convicted of multiple felony charges relating to insurance fraud, they were sentenced to 240 days in jail, followed by five years of probation, and ordered to pay $38,206.70 in restitution.
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