A Chemung County, New York man who hurt one eye on the job and later claimed it was the other eye is now staring at answering to workers’ compensation fraud charges for allegedly gaining benefits illegally. Clyde Stroman, 53, of Elmira, NY, faces felony charges including falsifying business records and violating the Workers’ Compensation Law following his arrest by the Elmira Police Department on Jan. 8. Investigators from the New York State Insurance Fund Division of Confidential Investigations said Stroman received workers’ comp benefits for an injury he sustained to his right eye in August 2008 when he attempted to restrain a client while working as a division youth aide at the MacCormick Secure Center in Brooktondale, NY.
During a subsequent eye examination, however, Stroman learned he may have unrelated damage to his other eye, according to investigators, after which he allegedly tried to the change the injured body part on his claim to his left eye in an attempt to gain workers’ comp coverage.
Investigators said the injury to Stroman’s right eye most likely would not have resulted in any lost time from work. According to investigators, Mr. Stroman allegedly attempted to convince NYSIF and his employer that the initial treating doctor’s reports identified the wrong eye as being injured, including giving a detailed, sworn written statement to that effect.
As a result, Stroman received $2,860 to which he allegedly was not entitled. Investigators estimated the potential future savings on his claim to be more than $118,000.
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1 comment:
The investigators claiming to have saved $118,000.00 is the scam here. I say this as a workers' compensation claimant's attorney in Rochester, knowing that a single eye injury is worth far less. For instance, even under the max rate of compensation currently in effect (which is probably higher than was in effect at the time of the injury reported), the loss of use of an entire eye is worth only 160 weeks of comp benefits, or $88,000.00. Obviously, the guy in this story didn't lose anywhere near 100 percent of his eye, or else his supposed scam would not have made sense to anyone, including the claimant himself. Apparently, nobody fact checks on this Insurance Company's propaganda site. Instead, stories like these serve to foster the false impression that the Workers' Compensation system is just one big fraud, which it is not. Spencer D. Parr, Esq. Rochester, NY.
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