Category: Daily News

A Santa Clara County correctional deputy pleaded no contest Tuesday to workers compensation fraud. Mark Navarrete had previously pleaded not guilty to felony charges of making and presenting a false or fraudulent statement in support of a workers’ compensation claim, but changed his plea Tuesday to no contest,

According to the district attorney, he had faced another charge of making a false statement in support of an insurance claim, which was later dismissed, The deputy faces up to five years in county jail when he is sentenced on Feb. 24,

Navarrete was injured during a softball game on July 14 while he was off the clock and filed a claim that he was injured on the job, A coworker knew the Navarrete was hurt outside of work and notified a supervisor, who then told investigators. Navarrete needed to undergo surgery on his left elbow as a result of the injury. Prosecutors said the case against Navarrete was “very strong.”

The arrest was part of a widening array of internal investigations magnified by the beating death of a mentally ill inmate. The Navarrete case predates the investigation into the deadly Aug. 26 beating of Michael Tyree at the Main Jail, which spurred murder charges against three other correctional deputies and prompted elected officials to promise a host of reforms of the county’s jail facilities, with pointed attention at misconduct by jail staffers.

To date, five correctional deputies — including the three in the Tyree case –have been arrested, and three more are on leave in connection with criminal investigations launched by the Sheriff’s Office based on alleged misconduct. Detectives are reviewing more than 100 complaints — for use of force or otherwise — filed since Tyree died.

Jereh Lubrin, 28, Rafael Rodriguez, 27, and Matthew Farris, 27, have pleaded not guilty to the murder and are scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Feb. 29. All three are free on $1.5 million bail. They also entered not guilty pleas to a second charge of assaulting another inmate, Juan Villa, the same night.

Concussion is a 2015 American biographical sports medical drama film starring Will Smith as Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian forensic pathologist who published research on the brain damage suffered by professional football players. The film also stars Alec Baldwin, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Albert Brooks. Columbia Pictures released the film on December 25, 2015.

According to the story line, in 2002, former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster was found dead in his pickup truck. Bennet Omalu M.D, a forensic pathologist with the Allegheny County, Pennsylvania coroner’s office, handles Webster’s autopsy, and discovers that he has severe brain damage. He ultimately determines that Webster died as a result of the long-term effects of repeated blows to the head – a disorder he calls chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). CTE has as a biomarker the presence of tau fibers and amyloid plaque in the brain. The idea of an NFL concussion film was inspired by Dr. Bennett Omalu’s later study about former NFL stars Junior Seau and Dave Duerson, both of whom committed suicide after suffering from CTE.

The movie struggles with the tension between Omalu’s studies, and the portrayal of sinister forces seeking to suppress them. The film suggests that CTE is clearly caused by sports head trauma, and that there is no truth in any other theory. It is this suggestion that has spawned hundreds of Workers’ Compensation sports injury claims as well as thousands of civil claims against the NFL.

The film does not depict the considerable conflicting medical evidence about the cause of dementia. Omalu’s findings were rejected by the world’s leading medical experts who met at the 4th International Conference on Concussion in Sport held in Zurich, November 2012. In 2013 its findings were published as a “Consensus Statement” in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (McCrory P, et al. Br J Sports Med 2013; 47:327-330). The article concludes “The speculation that repeated concussion or subconcussive impacts cause CTE remains unproven.”

As moviegoers enjoy the Concussion movie, more studies continue to emerge in the literature about suspected causes of tau fibers and amyloid plaque biomarkers in the brain. The theory de-jure comes from brain scientist Jeffrey Iliff, who works at the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. He told NPR that sleep is valuable for brain health, particularly because your brain purges amyloid, a toxin linked to Alzheimer’s, overnight, through what’s called the glymphatic system. If the glymphatic system isn’t able to properly clear the brain of amyloid, the researchers posit, it puts a person at a higher risk of Alzheimer’s.

Sleep habits now join a long list of theoretical causes of tau fibers and amyloid plaque. There is published medical literature claiming a relationship between dementia and cerebrovascular disease – cholesterol level – genetics – dental X-Ray exposure – ethno-racial differences – sleep apnea – diabetes type 3 or the metabolic hypothesis and even diacetyl (flavoring in popcorn, beer, and butter) to name a few of the many suspected causes.

It remains to be seen if the concussion hypothesis portrayed in the movie of the same name is fact or fiction.

The culmination of the Department of Insurance’s efforts in 2015 resulted in more than $69 million recovered for Californians from consumer complaints and market conduct exams. More than $56 million in grants were awarded to district attorney’s to fight insurance fraud, there was nearly $25 million recovered through lawsuits in which the Department joined whistleblowers to combat health insurance fraud, and more than $200 million obtained by the Department to settle a long standing dispute over a failed insurance company.

The Department also approved first of their kind insurance products for the sharing economy and built new web-based consumer tools to benefit Californians. To help Californians reduce the risk of damage to their homes from an earthquake, $3 million was also obtained in general funding for the California Earthquake Brace + Bolt program.

Fighting fraud continues to be a priority for the Department. Insurance fraud is a multi-billion dollar drain on California’s economy. For fiscal year 2015/2016 the Department awarded $34.95 million in grants to district attorneys to combat workers compensation fraud and more than $21.95 million in grant funding to fight auto and organized auto fraud. As of November 30, Department of Insurance detectives arrested 745 individuals for alleged insurance fraud this year.

In an effort to curb California’s underground economy the department led a statewide multi-agency outreach effort visiting more than 75 businesses to educate business owners about their obligations to comply with insurance, licensing, workplace safety, labor laws and tax codes. This effort resulted in more than 15 citations, multiple stop work orders and nearly $300,000 in fines.

When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published new guidelines 18 months ago regarding the radiation risk from cellphones, it used unusually bold language on the topic for the American health agency: “We recommend caution in cellphone use.” The agency’s website previously had said that any risks “likely are comparable to other lifestyle choices we make every day.”

But, according to the story in the New York Times, within weeks the C.D.C. reversed course. It no longer recommended caution, and deleted a passage specifically addressing potential risks for children.

Mainstream scientific consensus holds that there is little to no evidence that cellphone signals raise the risk of brain cancer or other health problems. Nevertheless, more than 500 pages of internal records obtained by The New York Times, along with interviews with former agency officials, reveal a debate and some disagreement among scientists and health agencies about what guidance to give as the use of mobile devices skyrockets.

Bernadette Burden, a C.D.C. spokeswoman, said in a statement that the original changes made in June 2014 stemmed from “a C.D.C.-wide effort to make health information for the public easier to understand” but led to confusion that the agency was making a new policy statement. “To correct that misperception and to confirm that C.D.C. had not changed its policy or recommendations, C.D.C. posted a clarification statement,” she said, adding that the cellphone industry did not weigh in before changes were made.

Christopher J. Portier, former director of the National Center for Environmental Health, the C.D.C. division that made the changes, disagreed with the decision to pull back the revised version. “I would not have removed it,” he said in an interview. “I would have been in support of a recommendation that parents look carefully at whether their children need cellphones or not.”

Mr. Portier also served on the International Agency for Research of Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization that in May 2011 called low-frequency radiation from cellphones and other devices a possible carcinogen. Mr. Portier’s view is not shared by many other experts. While sporadic claims about cellphones and cancer go back several decades, most American organizations echo the Federal Communications Commission, which says radio-frequency energy is not “effectively linked” with “any known health problems.”

John D. Boice Jr., president of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, said his own research had found “no evidence for associations with brain tumors or any other cancers.”

The European Environment Agency, like some others in Europe, strikes a more cautious tone than American agencies. “Scientific opinion is split on the issue – many different studies have reached different conclusions based on the same evidence,” the European agency says. It advocates “a precautionary approach to policy making in this area.”

The study cited most often is Interphone, a multination review published by the I.A.R.C. in 2010. CTIA, in a statement, noted that Interphone found “over all, no increase in risk.” But Interphone did find “some indications of an increased risk of glioma,” a type of brain tumor, among the heaviest 10 percent of cellphone users, though “the researchers concluded that biases and errors limit the strength of these conclusions and prevent a causal interpretation.”

California workers’ compensation is a liberal system. It will only take time for a few test cases to reach claim departments.

A father and son were convicted of embezzling over $300,000 from employee wages on public works jobs. Daniel Jacob Siapin, 60, and his son Gabriel Daniel Siapin, 37, both of La Habra Heights, pleaded guilty to a court offer of 28 felony counts of taking and receiving a portion of worker’s wage on public works, and 32 felony counts of recording a false and forged instrument with a sentencing enhancement for property loss over $200,000.

At the time of the crime, Daniel Siapin owned Siapin Horticulture, a landscaping, irrigation, and maintenance company, which he ran with his son Gabriel Siapin.

Daniel Siapin’s California state contractor’s license was revoked by the court. Daniel Siapin and Gabriel Siapin are each expected to sentenced to 90 days in jail, three years formal probation, ordered to pay over $227,000 in restitution, and are prohibited from working on any other public works contracts at their sentencing on April 11, 2016, at 9:00 a.m. in Department C-57, Central Justice Center, Santa Ana.

The defendants violated the law on a public works job, which requires a minimum “prevailing wage” be paid to workers. Prevailing wage consists of a base salary and “fringe benefits,” or benefits in addition to base pay such as vacation pay and pension money. Fringe benefits must be paid directly to the worker or may be put into a fund for later withdrawal by the worker if they do not work a full 40 hours a week.

In June 2010, both Daniel and Gabriel Siapin met with employees and offered to contract with a third party administrator to hold the employees’ fringe benefits in a savings account. However they failed to deposit over $300,000 in employee fringe benefits into the savings account from work performed in Orange County and other Southern California counties. The defendants instead embezzled the money meant for employee fringe benefits.

“Prevailing wage laws ensure that workers on public works projects are paid a just day’s pay for a hard day’s work, and those who violate those laws engage in wage theft,” said Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su. “Wage theft is a crime and my office is working with District Attorneys across the State to investigate and prosecute these cases. I am proud of and grateful for our collaboration with the Orange County District Attorney to bring scofflaw employers to justice.”