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| | AAA Copy, LLC Given Probation And Ordered To Pay Restitution In San Bernardino By Lonce LaMon - September 3, 2014
In a new and different twist on fraud in the workers' compensation world, a document copy and management services company, AAA Copy, LLC, which regularly serves workers’ compensation claims departments and attorneys on the insurance defense side, was placed on probation in San Bernardino County and ordered to pay $2,469.74 in victim restitution to State Compensation Insurance Fund.
The Rancho Cucamonga-based AAA Copy, LLC entered a plea of No Contest to one felony count of Insurance Fraud.
On July 1st 2014, a felony criminal complaint was filed by the San Berdo DA’s Workers’ Compensation Insurance Fraud Unit, charging AAA Copy with the felony count. According to Deputy District Attorney Dave Simon, who prosecuted the case, in the summer of 2013 claims managers at SCIF noticed that for a period of time from 2011 through 2013, AAA Copy was including charges of sales tax on their billings for copy and document services related to Workers’ Compensation litigation.
“This was something that no other copying service did for such services,” said Simon.
An investigation determined that while sales tax was being charged by AAA Copy for these services, the money received was not being submitted to the Board of Equalization; rather, it appeared that after charging sales tax to this customer, AAA Copy was keeping those funds.
The owner and operator of AAA Copy during the time period in which this crime was being committed was Inger Stewart Soto of Rancho Cucamonga. But Inger Stewart Soto died in early 2014, so only the company itself was considered for criminal charges.
On Aug. 15, 2014, a representative of the defendant company entered a plea of No Contest to that count as a felony, and was sentenced immediately. The Court placed the company on probation and ordered it to pay $2,469.74 in actual victim restitution to the State Compensation Insurance Fund, additional mandatory court fines and fees, and imposed a number of terms of probation on the company.
According to DDA Dave Simon, AAA Copy was ordered by the court not to charge sales tax in cases not authorized by, or submitted to, a state agency tasked with collecting sales taxes.
This case was investigated by District Attorney Investigator Rodney Tamparong.
journalist Lonce LaMon, lonce@adjuster.com; extracted from Press Release dated September 2, 2014 from the San Bernardino District Attorney's office.
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