Workers Compensation Fraud—Maryland

Amount: $3,000

A Maryland man was sentenced to probation and ordered to pay almost $3,000 on Wednesday. The sentence was handed down after investigators discovered that he had been collecting workers' compensation payments from the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) while training as a bus driver for the transit agency, Metro.

Officials said the fraudster had taken the bus driving job while he was out of work as a USPS letter carrier due to an injury he suffered on the job at USPS. He was reportedly “totally incapacitated” because of a back injury that occurred while he was working as a letter carrier. He had doctor's orders to do “No Work” while recuperating. The crime becomes more egregious when we examine the timeline a little more closely. The workers compensation complaint did not specify when the injury occurred. The fraudster received a job offer in early January, 2017, less than a week before he visited the physician. A day after he accepted the job offer, he claimed a back injury under the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs and began to receive payments soon after.

The defendant started working at Metro on January 23, 2017 and resigned from the Post Office on February 27, 2017, claiming he was going back to school. Later, he told investigators that he quit because his doctor told him he was healthy enough to go back to work. His employment at Metro was terminated two months after he started training.