After a nearly month long trial, Hosea Morgan, a Vallejo resident and former San Quentin State Prison worker, was found guilty of five charges including several acts of fraud and grand theft related to a pair of worker’s compensation claims filed in 2009. According to the report in the Times Herald Online, jurors heard from numerous witnesses in the case that had involvement in processing his claims, and later, investigating and documenting his daily life while he collected money from the State Compensation Insurance Fund.

Morgan became a correctional officer in 1985, and later, a counselor in 1995 mainly typing and moving files. It was during his time as correctional officer, he told an internal affairs investigator, that altercations were almost daily. Even later in his career as a counselor, altercations were “irregular, but frequent.” What was missing from these claims, investigators testified, was any supporting documentation, such as incident reports. When Morgan submitted his first worker’s compensation claim in 2009, he alleged arthritis in the “general parts of his body,” and injuries to his wrist, hip, ankles and knees.

These claims raised suspicion in the office of State Fund claims manager Andrea Guzman when a flier for a play was faxed to her. Starring in the production was Morgan. Guzman hired a private investigator to attend the play, “Misery Loves Company,” at Fairfield’s downtown Center for Creative Arts and record it. Jurors watched video of the performance in which it appeared Morgan played the role of a highly animated elderly gentleman who occasionally sang and danced. It was one of two separate theater performances that investigators attended and recorded.

By 2011, Morgan was collecting two-thirds of his regular take home pay due to a reported disability, according to testimony. However, investigators had already gathered video evidence of Morgan at a Vallejo schoolyard running his children through basketball drills.

In 2011, investigators collected video recordings from a Vallejo health club Morgan belonged to. The videos, which totaled more than seven hours worth and played before the jury, showed what investigators claimed was Morgan playing four-on-four pick-up basketball.

Morgan could face up to six years, eight months in state prison when he returns to court Nov. 10 for sentencing.