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The scam appears to have started in Oregon in 1984. Randal Melcher began his 11-year journey through workers’ compensation insurance fraud land, collecting $226,000 along the way.
In 1984 Melcher claimed to have injured his back while employed as a manual laborer and he collected benefits totaling $33,000.
A year later, and just three weeks into a new job, he allegedly injured his back again. He told his doctors that he’d never had any back problems before and then proceeded to collect another $21,000 in benefits.
In 1986 he made another claim, again on his “newly” injured back, and pulled in $90,000. Then there was another back injury (with yet another newfound employer victim), an eye injury, a right shoulder injury and one more back injury to top it all off.
Never, throughout the long string of work-related “mishaps,” did Melcher admit to a prior workers’ compensation claims history. On the contrary; each claim was his first.
An investigation of the most recent back injury revealed that Melcher was still receiving payments on some of the past claims.
He was arrested on April 20, 1995, and bail was set at $250,000. Charges included four counts of workers’ compensation fraud, one count of perjury and three counts of grand theft.
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