Category: Daily News

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.

Tranzon Asset Strategies in Irvine has been hired by the Orange County district attorney’s office to sell items owned by Michael Vincent Petronella and his wife, Devon Lynn Kile. The auction will take place at 4 p.m. Oct. 8 in a ballroom at the Wyndham Hotel in Irvine by John Wayne Airport, 17941 Von Karman Ave.

Petronella and wife, Kile, owned three general contracting businesses, including Petronella Roofing in Costa Mesa and Cathedral City. They were arrested in 2009 and eventually convicted of workers’ comp insurance fraud, each receiving 10-year sentences. At the time it was touted as the biggest insurance fraud case in California history.

“State officials and prosecutors say the couple operated a $38 million workers’ compensation insurance-fraud scheme,” the Orange County Register reported in November 2010. The paper quoted prosecutors explaining, “Petronella and Kile declined to pay for employees’ insurance and taxes, and instead used the money for personal expenses, including buying two Ferraris, hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry, and Gucci, Chanel and Burberry handbags and shoes.”

What also made the arrest juicy tabloid fodder was the fact that Kile was being considered for the “Real Housewives” television franchise. So what happen to all this couple’s ill-gotten spoils?

Tiffeny Cook, vice president of Tranzon Asset Strategies says initially vehicles and equipment from Petronella Roofing were sold in 2010. Most of the real estate, a home in Laguna Hills, a condo in Aliso Viejo, a condo in the desert, and the commercial real estate in Cathedral City, were over-leveraged and went back to the lenders.

And the majority of their personal vehicles, including a Bentley, Ferrari and Range Rover, were leased. However, there was a second Ferrari, a 1987 Testarossa, and that will be included in the upcoming auction.

What else can bidders expect? Diamond Jewelry from Winston, including 10-carat diamond ring, diamond bracelets, diamond earrings, diamond necklaces and diamond rings. Watches by Rolex, Cartier, Chopard, Panerai and Breitling. 1987 Ferrari Testarossa US version with passive restraint system, engine type F113A040. 2004 Ford F150 Super Crew 139″ XLT, 2WD, 4.6 Liter V-8 100. Handbags by Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga, Chanel, Gucci, Prada, Versace, Dolce and Gabbana, Burberry and more. Many new and unused 100 Pairs of shoes (size 7.5) by Christian Louboutin, Christian Dior, Dolce and Gabbana, Prada, Manolo Blahnik, Gucci, Jimmy Choo and more, Many new in box and unworn Clothing by Gianni Versace (including vintage), Stella McCartney, Missoni, Mara Hoffman, DVF and more Designer sunglasses and accessories.

From this inventory, it is hard to agree with the adage that crime does not pay – at least for the short term.  But in the longer term, tt may seem true as this couple continues to serve ten long years in a cold prison cell.

Cal/OSHA’s criminal investigation into the December 2012 falling death of a 51-year-old carpenter in San Francisco resulted in manslaughter charges by the San Francisco District Attorney against the worker’s employer and foreman. Salvador William Versaggi of Sonoma, owner of Versaggi Construction, along with foreman John Fitt of Sebastopol pleaded not guilty on to the manslaughter charges and two counts of violation of the labor code.

On December 26, 2012, 51 year old Jose Plancarte was assigned to lower a window frame opening in the main stairwell of a residential construction site at 40 Edgehill Way in San Francisco. Plancarte had worked as a carpenter for Versaggi’s company, Versaggi Construction, for 20 years. He built a nailed-bracket scaffold and used two scaffold planks to access the window located more than 18 feet above ground. Plancarte was not wearing fall protection and the scaffold did not have guardrails. He was found unresponsive at the base of the stairwell, having fallen 18.5 feet to the concrete basement floor. Plancarte was transported to San Francisco General Hospital, where he later died from his injuries.

Cal/OSHA’s investigation determined that Versaggi Construction had failed to provide fall protection training to its workers at the site, and that foreman Jim Fitt was aware that Plancarte had cobbled together a prohibited type of scaffolding in direct violation to the employer’s own safety program.

Cal/OSHA’s civil investigation resulted in the issuance of four citations with penalties totaling $25,870 on March 29, 2013, including two citations for serious violations.

The California Department of Insurance together with the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and Consumer Reports, announced the launch of California Healthcare Compare, a web-based tool that offers quality and price information in a consumer-focused, easy-to-use website. The tool is now available at HealthcareCompare.insurance.ca.gov and at ConsumerReports.org/CAHealthcareCompare. The California Department of Insurance obtained federal Affordable Care Act grant funds to enhance transparency in healthcare pricing. The CDI then partnered with UCSF and Consumer Reports to create California Healthcare Compare.

California Healthcare Compare allows consumers to compare hospital and medical group quality in the areas of maternity care, hip and knee replacement, back pain, colon cancer screening, and diabetes to help consumers make informed decisions about where to seek care. The site also reveals estimated regional costs for more than 100 different medical procedures or conditions ranging from appendicitis to prostate cancer, illustrating dramatic price differences depending on where you seek care. To enhance consumers’ knowledge of the healthcare system, Consumer Reports provides expert tips and advice on how to navigate the healthcare system.

“Consumer Reports sought out and incorporated feedback from thousands of consumers on issues of navigation and usability, resulting in a tool that makes complex data on quality and cost easy to digest,” said Doris Peter, PhD, Director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center. “Choosing a doctor or hospital shouldn’t be guesswork. By increasing cost and quality transparency in California, the tool gives consumers decision-making power that will ultimately drive marketplace change.”

“This website would not be possible in most states, because the information simply isn’t available,” said R. Adams Dudley, MD, Director of UCSF’s Center for Healthcare Value. “Because of the advocacy of California consumer and business groups and the vision of California’s insurers and providers, we have much more information about quality of care than most states.”

“We know there is wide variation in cost and quality across the state, and this program now allows each of us to better evaluate the doctors and hospitals available to us before we decide where to get care. It’s a key step in the long journey to increased transparency for California consumers,” added David Lansky, Chief Executive Officer of the Pacific Business Group on Health.

People may happily, and safely, forgo in-person doctors’ visits after surgery by opting instead for talking with their surgeons by phone or video, suggests a small study of U.S. veterans. According to the summary in Reuters Health, most patients preferred the virtual visits and the doctors didn’t miss any infections that popped up after surgery, the researchers report in JAMA Surgery.

“These kinds of methods are really important in the climate we’re in now,” said lead author Dr. Michael Vella, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. “So I think anything you can do to save money, see more patients and improve access to care is really important.” There is interest in so-called telehealth to increase access to healthcare while also decreasing the costs associated with traveling to office visits, Vella and his colleagues write.

Past research has found that telehealth visits may be useful in the treatment of chronic conditions and after surgery, but less is known about patients preferences for these types of visits, they add.

For the new study, the study team evaluated data collected over several months in 2014 from 23 veterans, all but one of them men, who were seen three times after a simple operation that would require only a night or so in the hospital. One visit was via video, the second was via telephone and the third was an in-person office visit. The researchers found that no post-operation infections were missed during the video or telephone visits. “The veterans were very good at describing their wounds,” Vella said. “There was one patient who thought they were having problems, we brought them into clinic and there was an infection.”

Overall, 69 percent of the participants said they preferred a telehealth visit over the traditional in-office visit. Those who preferred the telehealth visit tended to live farther away from the hospital than those who would rather come into the office. “I think (the study) challenges the paradigm that we need to see all patients back for visits,” Vella said.

He cautioned that the study was small, and they can’t say telehealth visits won’t miss problems. The study also can’t assess how telehealth visits would work for patients who have undergone more complex surgeries.