ARRESTS SOAR FOR COUNTY'S FRAUD SQUAD TASK FORCE NETS $2.1 MILLION IN RESTITUTION DURING PAST YEAR.Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer More than five dozen people were charged and $2.1 million in restitution In the context of Criminal Law, state programs under which an offender is required, as a condition of his or her sentence, to repay money or donate services to the victim or society; with respect to maritime law, the restoration of articles lost by jettison, done when the was collected over the last year in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County's crackdown crack·down n. An act or example of forceful regulation, repression, or restraint: a crackdown on crime. Noun 1. on workers' compensation workers' compensation, payment by employers for some part of the cost of injuries, or in some cases of occupational diseases, received by employees in the course of their work. fraud, a new report shows. The county report said 64 people were charged in the fiscal year that ended June 30, compared with 30 defendants charged in 2001-02, when $1.3 million in restitution was collected. ``This is in sharp contrast to the preceding nine years when there was a total of 67 fraud referrals from government agencies to this office,'' said Tom Higgins Thomas Higgins (born July 13, 1954 in Colonia, New Jersey) is an American-born Canadian and American football player and coach. He played linebacker at North Carolina State University and for one season (1979) with the National Football League's Buffalo Bills. , the deputy district attorney who heads the Workers' Compensation Fraud Division. While local governments are spending nearly $1 billion a year on workers' compensation costs, prosecutors have received 109 reports of government workers committing fraud and have arrested six county government employees. The workers' compensation system provides benefits to employees hurt on the job. Private employers buy workers' compensation insurance but complain that the rising cost of premiums is slowing job growth. In the report, Higgins wrote the recent crisis is similar to one in the early 1990s, when escalating premiums forced businesses to close or leave the state. ``The skyrocketing cost of workers' compensation insurance, primarily attributable to rampant workers' compensation fraud, was a significant contributing factor to the crisis,'' Higgins said. ``The abuse was so widespread that large fraudulent The description of a willful act commenced with the Specific Intent to deceive or cheat, in order to cause some financial detriment to another and to engender personal financial gain. medical-legal mills were easy to identify.'' Anti-fraud legislation was passed to curtail cur·tail tr.v. cur·tailed, cur·tail·ing, cur·tails To cut short or reduce. See Synonyms at shorten. [Middle English curtailen, to restrict the illegal activities of the doctors, attorneys and claimants who were defrauding the system. ``In the last few years, California's workers' compensation system has reached a crisis stage that exceeds the problems of the early 1990s,'' Higgins said. ``Businesses are moving out of state, going out of business or are unwilling to hire more employees because of the cost of workers' compensation insurance.'' Both employee and employer fraud are helping to drive up the costs. ``The number of employers who are committing premium fraud is also believed to be escalating as a reaction to the record high levels of premium rates,'' Higgins said. Troy Anderson, (213) 974-8985 troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com |
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