It’s not unusual for persons claiming workers’ compensation to be caught faking their injuries, but a recent California case has an unusual twist.
A 29-year-old woman claimed she injured her ankle while working as a school district janitor. She couldn’t walk without crutches, she said, and saw doctors at least ten times.
Tipped off by a co-worker, though, investigators caught the woman on videotape tossing her crutches into her car and running in her high heels to meet her boyfriend in a park. There she engaged with him in a sex act said by doctors to be impossible to perform with an injured ankle, according to the prosecutor. “I guess love just helps one get over injuries,” he said.
No word on exactly what the sex act involved. “I considered trying to find out what allegedly ankle-stressing act was involved here, but I’d rather we all just speculated,” said Kevin Underhill of loweringthebar blog in reporting on the case.
The woman pled no contest to the charges. She was sentenced to nine months in jail and three months’ probation and ordered to pay $79,000 in restitution.
Sources: “Woman’s sex romp exposes workers’ comp fraud,” Associated Press, December 14, 2012; Kevin Underhill, ” Running in High Heels Was Probably Enough to Defeat This Workers’ Comp Claim,” loweringthebar.net, December 17, 2012
Maureen Martin, a former legal fellow at The Heartland Institute, passed away on February 5, 2013.
