Copyright held by The John Cooke Fraud Report. Reprint rights are granted with attribution to The John Cooke Fraud Report with a link to this website.
In keeping with their reputation as the feistiest little fraud-fighting county in the state of California (Editor’s Note: and we’d put ’em up against any county in the country!), San Joaquin county’s DAs have done it again.
This time they set their sights on an insurance company service provider, specifically Wende Kashin, who operates Counseling Innovations, Inc.
Allegations included custom work that was not very customized at all. The complaint injunction filed by Deputy District Attorney Stephen Taylor states in part, “As part of the operation of defendant’s Vocational Rehabilitation business, the services of preparation of Job Analysis Reports and Labor Market Surveys were done for client insurance companies. Although most Counseling Innovations, Inc., insurance company reports were done as custom work and billed accordingly, in some instances defendant made a practice of preparing and invoicing reports that were substantially copies of previous ones as original reports. In addition, when reports were duplicated by word processors, the phone calls, letters and travel existent in the originals were included in the duplicate reports and were re-billed to the subsequent insurance company clients. Defendants’ invoices on these occasions claimed the greater original preparation time rather than the shorter time it took to assemble the duplicate.”
In a plea bargain arrangement, Kashin entered a no-contest plea to a misdemeanor charge of making false or misleading statements in business transactions. She was ordered to pay $52,000 to the California Department of Insurance as reimbursement of investigation costs, $20,000 to reimburse the San Joaquin District Attorney and $25,000 in civil penalties.
Kashin indicated, through her attorney, that it was a business decision to settle the case. She did not want to be tied up in trial for many months trying to prove that her business practices were actually the norm for her industry.
And while that may indeed be true, it just won’t work in San Joaquin County.
© 1995 John Cooke Fraud Report