Trial Involving Workers’ Compensation Fraud Surpasses O.J. in Importance to California

The headline announcing the arrests of Dr. James W. Eisenberg and attorney Michael J. Lightman as heads of California’s largest workers’ compensation fraud mill (“Officials Arrest Alleged Heads of Workers’ Comp Scheme,” June 30) comes too late for many of the state’s employers.

As unemployment insurance rates doubled and tripled in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, many of us decided to curtail expansion or move away. Those of us who stayed were unable to give raises because of our skyrocketing premiums.

I applaud the efforts of the unnamed investigators who have spent the last two years sorting through the records of this mill and others in order to begin these prosecutions. Employers are seeing their unemployment insurance rates drop considerably these days and no longer fear that this premium will force them out of business.

While the trials of people accused of unemployment insurance fraud will not get the publicity of the O.J. Simpson murder trial, these cases are in the end far more important to the citizens of California. They provide a real deterrent to the white-collar crime that robs our society of so many resources.

KAREN HELLER MASON, Los Angeles