Author: WorkCompAcademy

Fred F. Hafezi, M.D. is currently listed on the DWC QME database as a spine specialist with offices in Azusa and Ontario California. The Medical Board of California reflects that he holds Physicians and Surgeons certificate G19337 originally issued in October 1970. The Board records reflect that he is certified in Orthopedic Surgery.

Medical Board records also reflect that on June 25, 2013 the office of the Attorney General of California filed an Accusation against Dr. Hafezi asking that the Board revoke or suspend his Physician and Surgeon’s Certificate,

In support of this request, the Accusation alleged that “on April 25, 2013, in the case of The People of the State of California v. Farhad Fred Hafezi, Los Angeles County Superior Court case number KA090841, Respondent (Hafezi) was ordered, as part of his sentence, to register as a sex offender pursuant to the provisions of Penal Code section 290. As a result of his being ordered to register as a sex offender, Respondent’s Physician’s and Surgeons’ Certificate No. 019337 is subject to mandatory revocation pursuant to the provisions of Business and Professions Code Section 2232.”

The Accusation continues to allege the circumstances of the criminal prosecution. “Respondent was charged with several counts of oral copulation, contact with a minor with intent to commit a sexual offense, unlawful sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 18, all violations of the Penal Code. On April 1, 2011, Respondent did an “open plea” and pled nolo contendere to all 4 counts. Then on May 26, 2011, Respondent withdrew his plea of guilty. On April 5, 2013, the court denied Respondent’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea. As a result of his plea, he now stands convicted of several counts of oral copulation and a count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a person under 18. Respondent was sentenced on May 23, 2013. Imposition of sentence was suspended, and Respondent was placed on formal probation for 36 months, ordered to serve 180 days in the Los Angeles County Jail and required to register as a sex offender pursuant to Penal Code section 290. Respondent is currently out of jail as he was given credit for time served for his county jail sentence.”

On August 6, 2013, while being represented in the Matter of the Accusation by the Law Offices of Richard A. Moss, Hafezi and his attorney signed a Stipulation for Restricted Practice. The purpose of the Stipulation was to restrict his Physicians and Surgeons certificate pursuant to Government Code section 11529.

Pursuant to the Stipulation, on August 16, Hafezi was ordered to “cease performing any activity for which a license as a physician is required in the State o! California with the sole and singular exception he may complete reports on patients seen as workers compensation referrals who were referred to him prior to the date of endorsement of this Stipulation by the administrative law judge.”

It is further stipulated and agreed that the Stipulation would be posted on the Boards website as a public document. The Stipulation is to remain in effect until completion of the administrative proceedings against him, and the issuance of a final decision of the Medical Board thereon.

A Medical Board “Action Report” dated July 1997 reflects prior discipline for Dr. Hafezi based upon Business and Professions Code §2234(b)(c)(d) “Negligent and incompetent treatment of a patient with a back injury.”

An identity theft service that sells Social Security numbers, birth records, credit and background reports on millions of Americans has infiltrated computers at some of America’s largest consumer and business data aggregators, according to a seven-month investigation by KrebsOnSecurity.

Two of the hacked servers were inside the networks of Atlanta, Ga.-based LexisNexis Inc., a company that maintains the world’s largest electronic database for legal and public-records related information. LexisNexis is also widely used by members of the workers’ compensation community for legal research.

Contacted about the findings, LexisNexis confirmed that the two systems listed in the botnet interface were public-facing LexisNexis Web servers that had been compromised.

A tiny unauthorized program called “nbc.exe” was placed on the servers as far back as April 10, 2013, suggesting the intruders have had access to the company’s internal networks for at least the past five months. The program was designed to open an encrypted channel of communications from within LexisNexis’s internal systems to the botnet controller on the public Internet.

An initial analysis of the malicious bot program installed on the hacked servers reveals that it was carefully engineered to avoid detection by antivirus tools. A review of the bot malware in early September using Virustotal.com – which scrutinizes submitted files for signs of malicious behavior by scanning them with antivirus software from nearly four dozen security firms simultaneously – gave it a clean bill of health: none of the 46 top anti-malware tools on the market today detected it as malicious.

All three victim companies said they are working with federal authorities and third-party forensics firms in the early stages of determining how far the breaches extend, and whether indeed any sensitive information was accessed and exfiltrated from their networks.

For its part, LexisNexis confirmed that the compromises appear to have begun in April of this year, but said it found “no evidence that customer or consumer data were reached or retrieved,” via the hacked systems. The company indicated that it was still in the process of investigating whether other systems on its network may have been compromised by the intrusion.

“Immediately upon becoming aware of this matter, we contacted the FBI and initiated a comprehensive investigation working with a leading third party forensic investigation firm,” said Aurobindo Sundaram, vice president of information assurance and data protection at Reed Elsevier, the parent company of LexisNexis. “In that investigation, we have identified an intrusion targeting our data but to date have found no evidence that customer or consumer data were reached or retrieved. Because this matter is actively being investigated by law enforcement, I can’t provide further information at this time.”

The Law Offices of Mark R. Leeds entered into a contract with the Law Offices of Donald J. Reino, whereby Leeds agreed to refer workers’ compensation cases to Reino in consideration for payment of 25 percent of the attorney fees earned on those cases, 100 percent of all deposition fees (Lab. Code, § 5710) if “handled” by Leeds, and 25 percent of the vocational rehabilitation attorney fees.

Three years later, in 1997, Reino and Iida, a Professional Corporation, and Law Offices of Myles Iida were formed as successors of Reino. By this time, plaintiff had referred over 1,000 cases to Reino pursuant to the agreement. Leeds entered into a new agreement to the successor firm that is substantially similar to the original agreement with Reino

Reino and the successor firms paid plaintiff in accordance with the terms of the agreements for about 16 years.

On October 1, 2010, Leeds separated from the successor firms and formed his own firm in Long Beach California. at separation, many of the referred clients manifested their intent to substitute Leeds as counsel of record while others elected to remain with Reino; and some of the previously referred clients had substituted other firms to handle their claims. Reino then refused to pay any attorney fees to Leeds, and Leeds filed a civil action in Superior Court to collect the fees he claims to have earned.

Reino demurred to the complaint on three grounds: (1) the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the subject of the cause of action, because WCAB has exclusive jurisdiction over disputes regarding attorney fees in workers’ compensation matters; (2) another action is pending before the WCAB entitled Lovato v. The Kroger Co. dba Ralph’s Grocery, case No. ADJ7354967 (Lovato) between the same parties on the same issues, i.e., “the alleged failure of Defendants to pay Plaintiff[’s] referral fees allegedly earned under the alleged contract . . . including California Labor Code section 5710 deposition fees;” and (3) no cause of action for declaratory relief is stated. The trial court sustained the demurrer without leave to amend on all grounds asserted in the demurrer and entered its order (judgment) dismissing the complaint with prejudice.

Leeds appealed the dismissal, and the Court of Appeal reversed in the unpublished case of Leeds v. Reino and Iida.

The Court of Appeal concluded that the distribution of attorney fees in a final award pursuant to a fee splitting agreement is not subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the WCAB. “Once the WCAB has resolved the ‘reasonable amount’ of the attorney fees and makes a final award in this amount, the WCAB has no further interest in, or obligation to determine, how the fees are to be disbursed or otherwise disposed of by the lien claimant. We therefore conclude that a dispute between the lien claimant and a third party regarding allocation or division of the attorney fees in a final award issued by the WCAB is outside the jurisdiction of the WCAB. ”

A 78-year-old Auburn man pleaded guilty in federal court in Sacramento to making false statements to obtain federal workers’ compensation benefits.

According to the plea agreement, Bruce Lee Cearlock has been receiving workers’ compensation benefits under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act for an injury that he suffered as a civilian employee for the U.S. Navy on Aug. 26, 1987. When filing the periodic reports required by the Office of Workers’ Compensation Program to justify continued payments, between 2006 and 2008, Cearlock stated under penalty of perjury that he was neither self-employed nor involved in “any business enterprise.”

Court documents, however, state that from at least 1999 until 2011, Cearlock was involved in operating Fuse, a bar in San Francisco. Cearlock hired and fired employees, made decisions on capital expenditures and dealt with private citizens and public officials as the owner of Fuse.

During that time, Cearlock also was president and secretary of a privately held corporation, Alleycorp Inc., the sole purpose of which was to own the Fuse nightclub, authorities said. Shares in Alleycorp were equally split between Cearlock and his wife.

On the basis of his statements to the Office of Workers’ Compensation Program that he was not involved in any business enterprise, Cearlock continued to receive federal disability benefits.

Cearlock is to be sentenced Dec. 5 by U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley.

The case resulted from an investigation by the Department of Defense, Defense Criminal Investigation Service, Sacramento; the Naval Criminal Investigative Service; and the U.S. Department of Labor.

Douglas Lambert, 48, of West Hills and owner of Lambert Air Conditioning was convicted of committing workers’ compensation insurance premium fraud for failing to properly report employee payroll to the insurance carrier.

Lambert was ordered to pay more than $110,300 in restitution to Clarendon National and the State of California.

In response to a complaint in February 2010, the Department of Insurance in a joint effort with the Tulare County District Attorney’s Office began an investigation into Lambert. Lambert, a licensed air conditioning contractor operating in Tulare County, did not report any employee payroll to Clarendon National Insurance Company causing his business to pay at a lower premium. The investigation uncovered evidence Lambert failed to properly report employee payroll to the carrier from 2006 to 2009.

Lambert reported no employee payroll to Clarendon for the first three quarters of 2006 yet the business reported more than $8,800 in wages to the Employment Development Department during this same time period.

Further investigation revealed Lambert reported an employee injury to Clarendon National as a workers’ compensation claim although he was reporting no employee wages to them.

Douglas Lambert pled guilty to one count of insurance fraud.