DMV Employee Arrested for Insurance Fraud

For some of us, a trip to the DMV can turn us into an emotional blob; making us angry, depressed, nervous, or all of the above. For one DMV employee though, her trip to the DMV simply got her arrested.

According to the press release, Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced on September 21^st that 26-year-old Mia Rachel Brown was arrested by the California Department of Insurance (CDI), Fraud Division Detectives and Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) Internal Affairs Investigators. She is charged with three felony counts, including insurance fraud, violating the Insurance Code and the Penal Code, and Attempted Perjury.

She was taken into custody at the Compton Office of the DMV and transported to the Los Angeles County Jail to be booked. She is being held on $90,000 bail.

These charges are due to a workers’ compensation claim that Brown filed with her former employer, Dean Foods.

According to Detectives, the CDI Fraud Division received a tip from an anonymous caller that Brown had filed a workers’ compensation claim against Dean Foods and had recently showed up at a deposition using a cane. The caller said that while Brown had been off work on workers’ compensation disability, she had been employed at the DMV Office in Compton.

The investigation revealed that in October of 2009 Brown was an employee at Dean Foods, where she slipped on a wet floor in the dairy and injured her left knee and left hand on October 15, 2009. She reportedly also suffered from another fall on November 16^th that year. In May of 2010, Brown started her employment at the DMV.

At her sworn deposition, Brown denied working altogether and also stated that that she had not worked since November 16, 2009. She also told two physicians that she had not worked since 2009.

Brown had been collecting workers’ compensation disability checks from Liberty Mutual Insurance Company for the period of October 2010 through June 2011 while she was employed with the DMV.

The total loss from Brown’s fraudulent activities is $14,831.

If convicted of all counts, she could face a maximum of seven years in state prison.