City Employee Convicted for Workers Compensation Fraud NR10070rf

February 10, 2010

Los Angeles:  On Feb. 8, 2010, former City of Los Angeles employee, 51-year-old Olga Zavala-Edwards, was convicted of workers’ compensation and insurance fraud related to charges of filing a false claim for compensation.  Zavala-Edwards, who was a 24-year employee of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), was a civilian assigned to the Department’s Jail Division as a supervisory detention officer.  She was discharged from her job on August 3, 2009.  

LAPD investigators from the Workers’ Compensation Fraud Coordination Unit, Special Operations Division, began investigating Zavala-Edwards workers’ compensation claim involving an alleged industrial/on-the-job injury shortly after the claim was submitted.  The investigation centered on how the alleged Nov. 2, 2008, injury occurred, the actual location where Zavala-Edwards claimed she was injured and what information she had given to her treating physicians.  The investigation was conducted in partnership with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Healthcare Fraud Division, Workers’ Compensation Division of the City’s Personnel Department and the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.  

The investigation revealed that Zavala-Edwards did not tell the LAPD, her doctors or investigators with the City Attorney’s Office that her injury actually occurred at her home before she reported to work on Nov. 2.

As part of the criminal conviction for workers’ compensation fraud, the court ordered Zavala-Edwards to pay full restitution to the City of Los Angeles in the amount of $7,654.71 for all salary and medical benefits the City paid as part of her fraudulent claim.  In addition, Zavala-Edwards was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and placed on two years of summary probation.