WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? Californiaʼs Yolo and Sacramento County District Attorneyʼs Offices; Workersʼ Compensation & Insurance Fraud Units REFUSE to prosecute FRAUD COMMITTED BY EMPLOYERS AND INSURANCE COMPANIES. Could it be the California D.A.s fraud units donʼt know that employees have rights? According to Lt. Daniel Stroski; he doesnʼt know what employee rights are. VIDEO: "I don't know what employee rights are" said Lt. Daniel Stroski of the Yolo County District Attorney Workers Compensation/Insurance Fraud Unit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG84H6Ic7IE DESCRIPTION: On 9/8/2010; at a meeting of the California Department of Insurance Fraud Assessment Commission, Lt Daniel Stroski reported that he "did not know what employee rights are" to the commission. Lt. Stroski has refused to prosecute AgraQuest owner Pam Marrone and Liberty Mutual for committing workers comp fraud against injure Agraquest biotech worker David Bell. The commission voted unanimously to again give $254,000 again to the Yolo County DA's office. As of January 1, 2009; Lt. Stroskiʼs was making $108,000 a year to investigate and prosecute not only employee fraud, but also employer fraud. For more information on his case go to www.biotechawareness.com/ For more information on workers health and safety and workers compensation go to California Coalition For Workers Memorial Day www.workersmemorialday.org TRANSCRIPTION OF VIDEO: Lieutenant Daniel (Dan) Stroski *in charge of the Insurance Fraud Unit for the Yolo County District's Office COUNTY OF YOLO OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY DANIEL STROSKI: QUOTE: ... Yolo County District attorney offices. [SPEAKING OF HOW HE IS ALWAYS LAST AS YOLO COUNTY IS THE LAST ALPHABETICALLY] I wanted to let you know that the Yolo County is just seeking our status quo funding of $254,000 and we're not planning to do any expansion at this time.
We were blessed that you gave us funding for a half time attorney and I gotta tell you that was a mixed bag of "thank you " and "I wish you hadn't" because she's working me to death. I can tell you right now that next year there won't be as many arrests typically because we're clearing up all the backlog that we've had from the year's past, so I do anticipate more convictions, but less arrests... but she's working me to death. Ah.. I asked for the most aggressive prosecutor we had in the office... and that's going to be beneficial to the program, but its.. its.. its hurting me. I want to just talk about the outreach; I know that's been a really big point here. Yolo County just completed its third annual Fraud Awareness Fair that was in West Sacramento this year. It was attended... on my document here that I gave you; I wanted to correct page three... err page two, excuse me... paragraph 3.. line 3; there was 330 people, there were 330 people in attendance, not 350. I don't want to be accused of embellishing here. But we invited approximately 40 different law enforcement agencies; federal, state and local from all over. We focused on insurance fraud but also other fraud as well, because I'm a firm believer that fraudsters don't just commit fraud in one walk of life, I just don't believe that. I believe it's a lifestyle, it's a choice that they make and they will cut corners whenever they are given an opportunity. I believe that law enforcement has a duty, especially with these trying times of economic difficulties that we have a duty to to try and take a new[inaudible] and so when I'm working with my other fellow investigators from other agencies that have similar missions that we'll always have a better outcome. As an example; last week we did a sweep and we did a sting operation in West Sacramento. We had some downtime so we decided that we'd go out there and just go drive around the neighborhood and see if we could just find some construction sites... construction sites is an area where people are prone to get hurt. So we showed up to this one bus... this one construction site; completely unannounced. We didn't know we were going to go there, they didn't know we were coming and we caught eleven uninsured employees up on the roof.. tearing off the roof. We immediately took corrective actions; there was a department of industrial relations representative with me. He issued an $11,000 fine right there on the spot to the employer and we issued the necessary shut-down orders to stop the work until everything got put into compliance. So my point is that is an example of my working together with the different agencies all coming together. We've go another one planned in October and the Department of Insurance is going to go out with us. 2
So, we're doing what I think we can do to take your dollar and stretch it as far as we can. So, that's what we've done for outreach; and I wanted to address one thing Commissioner Garcia asked about. I gotta be honest with ya; I been [inaudible] be able to admit this, but I haven't done much in the way of outreach as it relates to employee's rights, I don't feel I'm qualified. I don't really know about what employee's right are when it comes to the workers' comp arena. I know what fraud is... I can talk about that all day long, but in terms of what their [employeeʼs] rights are, I will admit to Yolo County being a little neglectful in that, so if anybody wants to help me out in that I'd be happy to take that advise and run with it and we'll include it in our outreach program... but, the bottom line is I have been remiss in doing that because I don't feel I'm qualified. So, if you would've asked me that question the answer is ZERO because I don't feel qualified, but I'm not opposed to trying. We do talk to a lot of people, I'm a member of Rotary Club and we have a lot of agricultural members in my Rotary Club and I travel throughout West Sacramento, Davis, Winters whatever and I'm always talking about insurance fraud... premium fraud whatever. And so my mere presence is telling them that someone is there keeping an eye on them, keeping them honest. So that's probably the closest thing I can get to what your hoping, but I'm not talking about the employees... I'm talking to the employers trying to keep them honest is whats... So that's the extent of our program and I do thank you for the funding we've had so far and we hope that we can continue to merit your trust and have... RESPONSE FROM: CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF INSURANCE WORKERS' COMPENSATION FRAUD COMMISSION MEMBER: LILLIA GARCIA: “Well, I'd be happy to give YOU a one day seminar”. END OF VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION NOTE: Lilia Garcia did tell Lt. Daniel Stroski that employeeʼs have rights just as employers do.
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