CAMARILLO : Workers’ Comp Fraud Trial Begins

A computer sales executive from Camarillo continued to work while illegally collecting nearly $7,000 in workers’ compensation benefits, and there are videotapes to prove it, a prosecutor told a jury Wednesday.

But in his opening statement in Ventura County’s first-ever trial for workers’ compensation fraud, an attorney for 42-year-old defendant Alan Griffis said his client did not defraud the state compensation insurance fund.

Defense attorney George C. Eskin said his client was off with a cervical-disc injury when he collected $6,576 in state benefits from April, 1993, to August, 1993.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Terence M. Kilbride spent more than two hours outlining the prosecution’s case against Griffis, who was employed by BGL Technologies in Camarillo, a family-run computer components firm.

Kilbride said he will produce videotapes showing Griffis going to work during the same time he was receiving $336 in weekly benefits.

He also said he will call at least 17 witnesses and show the jury more than 200 documents supporting the prosecution’s case.

The prosecutor said Griffis suffered a pinch nerve while moving a file cabinet at work but that the injury did not render him disabled, as the defendant claimed to collect the benefits.

Eskin, however, said his client was disabled for the full time he received benefits.

He said Griffis remained on BGL’s payroll for that same period because his workers’ comp checks were not enough to survive on. He said Griffis was paid through accumulated sick days and vacation time.

“Mr. Kilbride told you this was a case about workers’ comp insurance fraud. That’s his spin,” Eskin told jurors. “This is a case about workers’ comp confusion and incompetence.”

The trial is expected to last several weeks.