Attorney Pleads Guilty to Insurance Fraud : Felony: The man had forged the signature of his wife’s ex-husband to cover $700,000 in expenses incurred when she gave birth to premature twins.

A Woodland Hills attorney pleaded guilty Monday to fraudulently obtaining insurance to cover $700,000 in medical costs incurred when his wife gave birth to premature twins.

James Douglas Gabriel entered the plea to one felony count of insurance fraud for forging the signature of his wife’s ex-husband on hospital documents to obtain insurance benefits for his wife hours before she gave birth.

Gabriel, 34, who lives in Hidden Hills, was sentenced by Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Raymond Mireles to five years probation and ordered to make restitution to AMI-Tarzana Regional Medical Center, where the twins were born March 4, 1989.

The babies, born four months prematurely, required care in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit for about two months, running up a $700,000 bill, said John J. Benane, an investigator with the state Department of Insurance Fraud Bureau.

Most of those costs will be paid by Medicaid, but Gabriel will be required to pay the remainder. Mireles also sentenced Gabriel to a year in County Jail, but stayed the sentence.

The fraud was discovered when the insurance company sent congratulatory flowers to the ex-husband.

Gabriel had no medical insurance because he had recently changed jobs. He told investigators that he did not want the births to take place in a county hospital.

“The babies were born prematurely and ended up requiring a tremendous amount of hospital care,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Lea Purwin D’Agostino said. “It’s terribly sad, and I can certainly understand the terrible pressure.”

D’Agostino had argued that Gabriel should receive a state prison sentence because of the large amount of money involved and because he was in a position of trust in the community.

But Mireles declined to give Gabriel a prison sentence, saying that he believed the attorney was acting under stress when he committed the fraud and was unlikely to do it again.

In addition, because fraud is considered a crime of “moral turpitude,” Gabriel will face disciplinary charges before the State Bar of California, Mireles noted.

Gabriel was fired from his new job with a Woodland Hills law firm after his arrest.

“It’s a real sad case,” Benane said.