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Fraud of the Week: Paper-Thin Logic for Workers' Comp Abuse

Two former managers of a Salinas, Calif. plant admitted to denying employees the workers' comp benefits to which they were rightfully entitled.

By Christina Bramlet | Updated on April 22, 2010

David Lawrence Polk, 53, and Douglas Minoru Tateoka, 61, were entrusted to manage — and ultimately safeguard — the hardworking employees at a Salinas, Calif. paper manufacturing facility. At least outwardly, they appeared to be succeeding. Workers’ compensation claims were minimal, and employees didn’t seem to require much time off work. Then a slew of grievances involving abuse of the workers’ compensation system started trickling in.

Now the former managers of the Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation’s Salinas plant await sentencing after pleading guilty in Monterey County Superior Court on March 25, 2010 to denying the workers’ compensation benefits to which their injured employees were entitled.

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