But the surveillance video provided additional evidence, as the San Jose Mercury News reported on Friday:
[A California woman] was caught on videotape in August 2009 throwing her crutches into a car and running in high heels to meet her boyfriend at a public park, where she took part in a sex act that doctors concluded she couldn't have done with an injured ankle, District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said.
As we've seen at least once before, evidence that a person claiming to be too seriously injured to work has been seen running in high heels is generally sufficient to defeat that person's compensation claim and get them charged with fraud. Granted, in that case the defendant was a 41-year-old male prison guard, and so presumably less skilled at running in heels than the 29-year-old woman involved in this case. Maybe that's why the DA called in medical experts for a feasibility study here, just to be sure. Still, since the woman had been claiming the ankle injury left her unable even to walk (hence the crutches), the running would probably have done it.
I considered trying to find out what allegedly ankle-stressing act was involved here, but I'd rather we all just speculated.
The woman pleaded "no contest" last week and was sentenced to nine months in jail, three years of probation and $79,000 in restitution. A colleague at the school district where she worked apparently alerted the district to the possible fraud, but the report didn't say exactly what it was that made that person suspicious in the first place.
