A man in Cincinnati pled guilty to fraud and owes the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation over $100,000 in benefits he received while working as a janitor- a job he got with a fake ID.

John Monday had been working as a janitor for the Cincinnati Spine Institute under the name John Turner for over 20 years. The BWC’s Special Investigation Department opened an investigation on the man after he had been seeking afterhours treatment from a physician at the institute, telling the physician he had another doctor who treated him for injuries from a previous workers’ comp claim.

When Mr. Monday gave his medical records to the new doctor at the Spine Institute he realized they were under the name “Monday” and not “Turner” as he had been using. He asked the doctor not to file his visits with the BWC because he was not supposed to be working. Obviously that strategy did not work out for Monday.

His story unraveled and everybody realized Monday had been working at the Spine Institute since 1990, yet had been receiving permanent total disability and disabled workers’ comp benefits that whole time. He got the janitorial job with a fake ID for someone named John Turner.

The judge ordered Monday to pay restitution of $105,169.23, court costs and an investigative cost fee of $3,692.84. He is also on community control for five years, the terms being that he cannot receive any new convictions and he has to be employed within 60 days. If he fails the conditions of his community control he goes to jail for 18 months.

It’s impressive that he kept up a scheme like this for 20 years and only really got busted because of a mistake he made. Then again, maybe this points out a major flaw in the system. Workers’ comp does have a lot of real issues going on right now that people are focused on. I’m not discounting opioid abuse or physician dispensing. But I’m not sure if distractions like that are enough to allow this guy, and probably a lot of other people, to play the system for so long. I’m not sure if stories like this dispel people from committing fraud or just make it seem easy.