49 year old James Wood, who lives in Simi Valley, pled guilty to two felony counts of workers’ compensation insurance fraud.

At the time of his guilty pleas, Wood paid full restitution to the victim insurance carrier State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF) in the amount of $151,891.

Wood, a general contractor, has operated Wood Construction Company since March 1997. He admitted to misrepresenting his total payroll and number of employees between 2015 and 2017, to fraudulently obtain lower workers’ compensation insurance premiums, defrauding SCIF of $151,891.

Sentencing in this case is scheduled for May 13, 2021, at 9:00 a.m. in courtroom 23 of the Ventura County Superior Court.

Wood faces a maximum sentence of six years in jail.

The Ventura County District Attorney’s Workers’ Compensation Fraud Unit vigorously investigates and prosecutes insurance fraud in Ventura County. Workers’ compensation premium fraud is not a victimless crime, it results in inflated costs to insurance carriers that are passed along to other law-abiding employers and, ultimately, to consumers.

Perpetrators of premium fraud also obtain an unfair competitive advantage over law abiding businesses because their costs are much lower than their competitors’.