Remember Anita Maxwell? Me neither. She was a part of season 4 of a reality television show called Bridezillas. Maxwell was allegedly running a con over the past couple of years to defraud a workers’ compensation insurance company.
This post covers what she allegedly did and how the authorities nabbed her.
Maxwell, who turned herself in to the Superior Court of California, Division 30 in LA County, is facing 14 felony counts connected with insurance fraud. An investigation conducted by the California Department of Insurance found that she made false claims that allowed her to receive in excess of $40,000 in workers’ compensation that she did not deserve.
The investigation into Maxwell began in 2012 shortly after she claimed that she had an injury to her shoulder, neck, and back when she was working as a clinical partner and trying to help a patient. She lied to her doctor and said that she did not have any prior injuries to those areas of her body. However, the investigators were actually able to uncover injuries dating as far back as 1990. Even before her claim in 2012, she received workers’ compensation totaling around $20,000 from a different supposed injury.
When the doctor learned of the past injuries, he said that it would have affected the disability amounts she received. It would have effectively lowered it to 25% of what she actually received since she had past trauma and her current job was not entirely responsible for the injury.
Maxwell lied about more than merely the injuries though. She also turned in falsified mileage forms for travel to and from the doctor and from physical therapy. The investigation showed that she would often go to and from those appointments from different locations than she filled out on the form to the insurance company. They discovered that the discrepancies in mileage actually resulted with receiving $5,000 in reimbursement for miles she never actually drove. The Los Angeles DA will be prosecuting the case.
If you run a business with employees, then you have workers’ compensation insurance. If you’ve ever had workers that received compensation because of an injury, then may have wondered if their injuries were legitimate. Professional private investigators are regularly retained by insurance companies to determine if these injuries are valid.