Bee Staff
A woman, who claimed disability payments for a work-related back injury, will be going to jail after she was caught on camera doing a variety of tasks, including lifting items, according to Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully.
Diane Lynn Hunter was sentenced to five years formal probation and six months in the Sacramento County jail after pleading guilty to felony charges of workers' compensation fraud, insurance fraud and attempted perjury, Scully said in a news release.
Hunter also was ordered to repay the insurance company $29,225, Scully said.
Here's the chain of events leading to Hunter's guilty plea as laid out by Scully:
In May of 2007, the defendant, who worked as a Wal-Mart cashier, and claimed to have hurt her lower back while lifting a heavy object as a cashier at a Walmart store.
After filing a claim for workers' compensation benefits, Hunter failed to inform her doctors about a previous motor vehicle accident and previous surgeries.
She was also videotaped on numerous occasions shopping, walking, sitting and lifting items for several hours at a time without signs of injury.
Hunter's sentence "is justice served with repayment to the insurance company for the administration and investigation expenses of the fraudulent case and county jail time for the offender," said Supervising Deputy DA Kelly Lynn Mulcahy.
Mulcahy also praised the work DA Investigator Cristina Tanghetti on the case.
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