Workers’ compensation is one of those great programs that provides financial relief to those who need it most. It’s a form of insurance designed to provide “wage replacement and medical benefits to employees injured in the course of employment in exchange for mandatory relinquishment of the employee’s right to sue his or her employer for the tort of negligence.” Unfortunately, all too often people try to take advantage of the system, like a state juvenile detention officer who was recently busted for workers’ compensation fraud.
Workers’ compensation is one of those great programs that provides financial relief to those who need it most. It’s a form of insurance designed to provide “wage replacement and medical benefits to employees injured in the course of employment in exchange for mandatory relinquishment of the employee’s right to sue his or her employer for the tort of negligence.” Unfortunately, all too often people try to take advantage of the system, like a state juvenile detention officer who was recently busted for workers’ compensation fraud.
But what is workers’ compensation fraud? Well, it’s similar to other types of fraud, and is, unfortunately, on the rise across the country. Specifically, workers’ compensation fraud is when someone “knowingly makes a false representation of a material fact to obtain or to deny workers’ compensation benefits or to avoid responsibility under the law.” This is exactly what Dameon McLean, 41, of Hartford, Connecticut did.
McLean collected workers’ compensation benefits after a workplace injury on March 22, 2016, that was “supposed to have rendered him unable to work.” However, McLean tried to take advantage of the system by taking another job while collecting workers’ comp. Apparently, his injury wasn’t as debilitating as he wanted everyone to believe. But how did he get caught? Where else was he working?
In October of 2016, surveillance caught McLean working as a behavior support paraprofessional “for the Cromwell school system” where he was responsible for supervising “students whose behavior required them to be removed from a classroom.” According to his arrest warrant, “McLean continued to collect workers’ compensation from his state job although he was not entitled to do so, and amassed around $21,000 in benefits while earning another $16,109 from the Cromwell job.”
As a result of his fraudulent activities, McLean was arrested by inspectors “from the Workers’ Compensation Fraud Control Unit in the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney,” and has been charged with “two counts of fraudulent claim or receipt of benefits and first-degree larceny by defrauding a public community.”
He is expected to appear in court on February 9 and was released on a written promise that he would actually show up.
Sources:
State Juvenile Detention Officer Charged with Workers’ Compensation Fraud
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