Allegedly, several workers from the LIRR claimed to be disabled upon early retirement so they could collect more disability benefits.
The former LIRR director of shop equipment, engineering, and environmental compliance, Donald Alevas was arrested for his alleged participation in the said disability benefit fraud.
Alevas is the 22nd person to be charged in the said scheme. Other involved are two doctors and an office manager who allegedly worked together to falsify diagnostic results of the retiring LIRR workers and make them disabled. Also, two facilitators were also identified as liaisons or third parties between the participating doctors and the 18 retirees whom one was likewise charged as facilitator.
He was subsequently released upon paying his bail and without even entering a plea before the federal court in Manhattan, according to reports.
Prosecutors believe that there could possibly be as many as 1,500 LIRR retirees suspected of fraudulent acts to get disability benefits.
Consequently, an existing immunity deal was recently provided and that the same has been extended until Sept. 14. The deal is set to give LIRR retirees a chance to admit to lying and keep their LIRR pension and some disability benefits that they have already received in the past in exchange of surrendering any of their future payments.
Fortunately for those who had signed up to the amnesty deal by July 6, they are permitted to keep all of their past benefits while those that intend to wait the final deadline of October 15, half of the benefits they have received in the past will be forfeited.
A Los Angeles social security claim lawyer is quite disappointed that a lot of disability frauds are surpassing the government’s tight filtration of applicants despite the growing number of truly qualified disabled people.
