4 Face Workers’ Comp Fraud Charges

A doctor, a chiropractor, a therapist and a former Los Angeles County employee were charged with organizing a large workers’ compensation fraud scheme that has netted them more than $2 million since 1999, authorities said Monday.

The allegations of fraud, which would be the county’s largest, come as California’s workers’ compensation program, covering 200,000 employers, teeters on the verge of collapse because of declining resources.

Dr. Parviz Berjis, 69, pleaded not guilty and was ordered held in lieu of $500,000 bail. His medical license also was suspended, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Harrold said.

Sam Salehi, 36, a Winnetka-based chiropractor also entered a not guilty plea; two other alleged conspirators, former County-USC Medical Center welder Leroy Jaramillo, 55, and therapist Bijan Rahmani, 51, of Los Angeles are scheduled for arraignment today.

“Jaramillo and these three medical professionals are charged with conspiring to commit workers’ compensation fraud and grand theft to the tune of $2 million,” Harrold said.

“This is the largest single case of workers’ comp fraud involving the county ever,” said Tom Higgins, deputy district attorney in charge of the workers’ compensation fraud unit.

Higgins said that a statute of limitations restricted the prosecution to the last four years, but that the alleged fraud might have begun years earlier.

The case stems from a workers’ compensation claim filed by Jaramillo as a result of an alleged injury he suffered in the 1980s while working as a welder at County-USC.

Prosecutors allege in the 16-count complaint that Jaramillo submitted false mileage bills for visits to medical professionals he had never made and that in turn they billed for those non-visits on numerous occasions since 1999.

Jaramillo had sought reimbursement for mileage to a doctor’s office last year on the day he was arrested for a drug-related incident in Arizona, Harrold said.

On another date when a doctor billed for face-to-face therapy, Jaramillo was appearing in an Arizona courtroom in the drug-related case, according to Harrold and court filings.

Harrold said that because bills were paid late, Jaramillo collected penalties -- for every $100 paid to his treating medical professional, he received $110 personally.

“Once the penalties were awarded, the treatment went up dramatically,” Harrold said.

Harrold said Berjis and Salehi are expected to appear again in court today for a hearing on whether they can make bail based on assets that are not tied to the alleged fraud.