Hosea Morgan worked at San Quentin State Prison as a correctional officer and correctional counselor. He filed two claims with the State Fund for multiple disabling workplace injuries. State Fund paid a total of $74,619.13 in workers’ compensation benefits.
Surveillance by investigators revealed that while on leave, he engaged in physical activities that were inconsistent with his claimed injuries, including basketball, theater, lifting appliances, and long walks. His PTP said he would not have taken appellant off work if he had known he was able to play basketball.
His PQME was shown the surveillance video at trial, and said that Morgan had not disclosed his true physical condition and should have returned to work during the period he was placed on disability leave.
Morgan’s defense at his criminal trial was that his claims were legitimate and that although he engaged in the physical activities captured on the surveillance tapes, he was in pain when he did so.
A jury convicted him of five felony counts arising from a fraudulent workers’ compensation claim: insurance fraud in violation of Penal Code section 550, subdivision (b)(1), insurance fraud in violation of Insurance Code section 1871.4, subdivision (a)(1), grand theft of personal property in violation of Penal Code section 487, subdivision (a), presentation of a fraudulent claim in violation of Penal Code section 72, and perjury in violation of Penal Code section 118. The conviction was affirmed in the unpublished case of People v Hosea Morgan.
Morgan argued on appeal that he suffered unfair prejudice based on the combined effect of two pieces of evidence: (1) a surveillance video that showed him walking down a pier kissing a woman who was not his wife; and (2) his unsuccessful attempt to recover workers’ compensation benefits for erectile dysfunction. He argued that this evidence had little, if any, probative value and was clearly prejudicial.
The prosecutor sought to introduce evidence that appellant walked about half a mile down the Vallejo pier, which contradicted his statements to investigators that his injuries limited his ability to walk. And the woman in the tape was not be identified. And the tape was redacted to edit out a prolonged embrace between appellant and the woman.
The opinion concluded that the “trial court did not act in an arbitrary, capricious or patently absurd manner by admitting the redacted tape or the evidence of erectile dysfunction. There was no abuse of discretion.”
Morgan’s attempt to obtain workers’ compensation benefits for erectile dysfunction when there was evidence it was in fact unrelated to his industrial injury tended to show that he was untruthful in making his other workers’ compensation claims for which benefits were paid. “Where fraud is charged, evidence of other frauds or fraudulent representations of like character, committed by the same parties at or near the same time is admissible to prove intent.”