GILROY
– A Monterey County judge has ordered a chiropractor who
practiced for years in Gilroy to pay the state $1.7 million in
damages for workers’ compensation fraud, fraudulent billing
practices and illegal licensing.
GILROY – A Monterey County judge has ordered a chiropractor who practiced for years in Gilroy to pay the state $1.7 million in damages for workers’ compensation fraud, fraudulent billing practices and illegal licensing.
Salinas-based chiropractor Steven Thompson and his related corporate entities were found guilty of several charges of billing and operational fraud in December 2002. This month Monterey County Superior Court Judge Robert O’Farrell ordered Thompson to repay the state $1.7 million.
“This was a sham operation that took from everyone it could to make the doctor richer,” said Jim Speiering, a Monterey-based attorney who teamed with Joel Franklin to file the court action against Thompson. “The heart of this scam was false appearance.”
Operating as Thompson Chiropractic in Gilroy until 2000, Thompson also maintained offices in Salinas and Watsonville.
The court found that Thompson performed unnecessary procedures on patients to scam workers’ compensation. It also found that he engaged in fraudulent billing practices in order to siphon profits from the medical centers, and that he forged documents claiming he was a medical doctor although he was only licensed as a chiropractor.
In 1999 Monterey Mushrooms, a 5,000-employee mushroom growing, distributing and wholesaler based in Watsonville, filed a class action suit against Thompson for what it believed was worker’s compensation fraud related to several of its employees.
The firm also has a mushroom growing operation in Morgan Hill at 642 Hale Ave.
“It’s encouraging to see that the money this guy took from the taxpayers in fraud will be going back to the people of California,” Speiering said.
