D.A. adds attorneys to enlarge war on workers' comp fraud.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office plans to boost the number of attorneys in its workers' compensation fraud unit 60 percent this month by transferring in nine new deputy prosecutors, bringing the total to 24.

Partly as a result, the number of prosecutions brought by that unit should rise sharply in fiscal 1995, which began July 1, said Edward Feldman, acting head deputy of the workers' comp fraud division.

"It (the number of prosecutions) should be 50 percent to 100 percent higher," he said.

From July 1 of last year to May 31 of this year, the unit prosecuted 41 new defendants, and 24 of those were convicted, with one defendant acquitted and another whose case was dismissed. Cases are still pending for the other 15 new defendants. Figures for June were not yet available at press time.

The numbers suggest convictions have been steadily rising since the District Attorney's office created the unit in January 1992 to address the rising tide of fraud cases.

During the unit's first 18 months, a period ended June 30, 1993, a total of 56 workers' comp fraud cases were prosecuted, leading to 25 convictions. One case was dismissed.

Feldman said he is unable to compare the latest 11-month figures with year-earlier data because the unit did not break out statistics for the 11 months from July 1, 1992 to May 31, 1993. The unit began work in the middle of a fiscal year and the D.A.'s office decided to aggregate statistics for those initial 18 months, he said.

Feldman attributed the projected rise in prosecutions in part to the new staff -- which includes the nine attorneys slated to be brought on board this week, plus four new investigators and two legal clerks, along with a yet undetermined number of paralegals. The non-attorney additions are scheduled to be made before year's end.

Feldman also cited complicated cases scheduled to come to trial within the next few months.

The most notable involves Beverly Hills physician Mark Kaplan, who was indicted last September, along with 11 others, for operating a workers' compensation fraud ring that may have netted as much as $50 million. Kaplan and his co-defendants allegedly used a dummy employment office and a chain of clinics to recruit laid-off workers to file false claims, Feldman said.

Jury selection for that case is slated to begin later this month. But Feldman said he believes it may be delayed, although he added that he is certain a trial will begin by year's end.

Feldman said the unit would also devote more time to insurance premium fraud cases, in which an employer makes false claims to an insurer, and to applicant cases, in which individuals make false claims.

The number of so-called medical legal fraud prosecutions, which involve clinics and doctors such as those in the Kaplan case, may actually decline, according to Feldman.

"A lot of those mills have gotten wary and shut down," he said. "Workers' comp claims in the state are down dramatically, 27 percent to 41 percent, depending on which insurer you talk to." Bob Gore, a spokesman for the Association of California Insurance Cos., confirmed claims are down.

There are no immediate plans to conduct undercover operations, as were recently conducted in Orange County, Feldman said. An elaborate sting operation recently concluded by Orange County prosecutors that included creating a dummy law firm to field medical clinic solicitations led to the indictments of 20 fraud suspects.

Meanwhile, the L.A. County unit will make do with the same amount of funding it received last fiscal year -- about $5.3 million granted from a request of $7 million.

The big difference is there was a large pool of carryover funds from last year -- up to $2 million, according to Feldman's estimates. About $1.3 million of that is money the state did not deliver to the D.A.'s office before the fiscal year ended, but is expected to allocate this month. That will be used to pay for the transfers and new hires, which District Attorney Gil Garcetti and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors approved in May.

The condition of the unit is a far cry from earlier this year, when Garcetti was on the brink of transferring prosecutors out because of a $3.5 million shortfall in the D.A.'s overall budget. The Board of Supervisors voted in April to grant Garcetti the money to keep the workers' comp fraud unit and similar units intact.

"We're in pretty solid shape," Feldman said.