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Chiropractor gets fraud termCOURTS: Authorities say a Santa Ana man, 72, and his nephew ran the state’s largest dis-ability-insurance scam.By BRYON MacWILLIAMSThe Orange County RegisterIn what authorities call the largest documented case of disability fraud in California history, a chiropractor from Santa Ana was sentenced Friday to two years in state prison.From 1990 to 1993, Emilio Oleynick Abitia, 72, submitted 910 claims for state disability insurance totaling more than $2.3 million, more than $1 million of which was fraudulent, investigators said.The sentence by Orange County Superior Court Judge William R. Froeberg does not reflect the scope of Abitia’s operations but only the eight counts to which he pleaded guilty after filing phony claims for undercover investigators.‘‘He was basically a full-service fraud,” said Deputy District Attorney Michael Lubinski, who had sought the maximum term of six years, eight months.“If he could get disability claims, he’d do that. Insurance claims? He’d do that. Workers’compensation claims? He’d do that,” Lubinski said. “If you came in the door, you were going to have a problem.”Abitia denies committing the fraud.He blames his nephew but stresses that he pleaded guilty because he should have known what was happening in his Santa Ana Professional Health Center on East Washington Street.The nephew, Robert Vallarino, 43, was earlier sentenced by Froeberg to four years in prison.He previously was convicted of the same crime in Long Beach.As part of the terms imposedFriday, Abitia was ordered to pay $139,883 in restitution to the state Employment Development Department to offset costs of processing the phony claims.Lubinski said police were tipped off by two former employees who quit their jobs at the clinic upon learning of the deception.Abitia was arrested after fashioning a claim for an undercover agent who said he was not injured but simply wished to traVel to Mexico.Said Lubinski, “It was well-known in the Hispanic community that you could go to him if you wanted to get time off of work.”
Newspaper Details
Santa Ana Orange County Register
Santa Ana, California, US
Fri, Feb 17, 1995
Page 249
Full Page
Clipped by
Debbie B.
CA 13 Apr 2024
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