Elk Grove Man Pleads Guilty to Workers' Comp Fraud

August 25, 2014 |

An Elk Grove man pled guilty last week to felony to workers' compensation insurance fraud.

On September 12, 2012, Robert Earl Sallie was loading an exercise machine into a front bucket loader while working as a refuse truck driver for the City of Folsom. When he looked away from what he was doing, the exercise machine fell out of the bucket and the handle of the device hit him on the head. He suffered a cut on his head that required four staples, but a CT scan and MRI showed no other injury related to the accident. 

Sallie filed a claim for workers’ compensation insurance benefits, including Total Temporary Disability, which paid him two-thirds of his average weekly pay tax free. At subsequent doctor’s visits, Sallie continued to complain of headaches, dizziness and poor balance. While performing a balance test in the doctor’s office, he fell over onto the doctor. 

Beginning October 7, 2012, the City of Folsom had investigators conduct video surveillance on Sallie. Sallie was seen driving two vehicles, visiting friends and neighbors, going to Starbucks, bending over and engaging in other activities without any indication of the debilitating dizziness, headaches and vertigo he described to doctors. 

He also fabricated a story that a co-worker had been paralyzed as a result of injuries he suffered in the same incident in which Sallie received his head wound. He told doctors that he tried returning to work, but got too dizzy and had to go home. In fact, Sallie never went back to work and no one else was injured in the incident. 

Sallie was sentenced to 60 days on Sheriff’s work release, three years formal probation and ordered to pay $28, 270.63 in restitution to the City of Folsom.