A California business owner and her husband will be serving jail time and paying more than $925,000 in restitution after pleading guilty to workers’ compensation fraud totaling almost $1 million.
Carmen Hall Soruco and her husband, Antonio Soruco, were sentenced Feb. 7 to each serve 120 days in jail and pay more than $925,000 in restitution to the State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF) and Employment Development Department (EDD).
Hall Soruco was also sentenced to two years of probation following her guilty plea on multiple felony counts, while Soruco will serve one year of probation after pleading guilty to multiple misdemeanor charges.
An investigation into Soruco Structures, a general contractor company, began after an employee filed a workers’ compensation claim, according to a California Department of Insurance news release.
The company, which listed Hall Soruco as the sole owner and her husband as its operator, hadn’t reported employees or payroll on their workers’ compensation insurance policy until the claim was filed.
Investigators found the couple committed workers’ compensation insurance premium fraud by failing to report employees and payroll to SCIF from Oct. 15, 2013 through Dec. 8, 2016, leading to a premium loss of $585,666.
The couple also committed payroll tax evasion by failing to report employees and payroll to EDD from Oct. 15, 2013 through Feb. 6, 2019, resulting in a loss of $342,405.