The owner of a California agriculture company and his daughter were each sentenced to 10 years and ordered to pay more than $2.5 million in restitution after pleading no contest to six felony counts of workers’ comp insurance each.
Felipe Saurez Barocio, owner of Agriculture Services Inc., and his daughter Angelita Barocio-Negrete were sentenced to serve six years in custody and four years on mandatory supervision Jan. 12 and ordered Feb. 22 to pay $2,582,142 in restitution.
The restitution is the equivalent “amount of workers’ compensation insurance premium they avoided paying over five years,” according to a California Department of Insurance news release.
California’s State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF) filed a claim Oct. 14, 2019, with the Department of Insurance regarding alleged workers’ compensation insurance fraud by Barocio’s company.
An investigation found Barocio and his daughter, who worked as the company’s office manager, underreported employee payroll by $11 million in order to fraudulently reduce the business’s premium for workers’ compensation insurance.