Investigators ‘Smelled Something Fishy’ About Atlanta Sewer Workers Claims

State of Georgia and Atlanta investigators have closed down an insurance scam in which 10 workers at the James Walker Sewer Construction and Maintenance Facility filed disability claims for non-existent injuries. Investigators charged the city employees with felony insurance fraud.

Three employees were arrested during a late-morning raid at the facility near Grant Park, where all 10 worked.

Janet Ward, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Watershed Management, told Atlanta Journal-Constitution two of those charged were supervisors, and the rest were members of sewer maintenance crews working out of the facility.

State Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine said the nine men and one woman all filed claims against supplemental disability policies issued by Columbus-based Aflac, while still reporting for their city jobs.

“They had bought various policies as part of their employment benefit package, and if they claimed to be out of work for a non-work related injury, they could receive various amounts of money for lost wages while they were out,” Oxendine said.

“These individual employees actually were not injured,” Oxendine said. “They continued to still go to work.”

The employees filed claims for between $50,000 and $60,000 in total disability benefits, and more than $40,000 was paid to seven of the employees before “Aflac started getting suspicious and denied some of those payments,” Oxendine told the Journal-Constitution. Some employees received as much as $8,000 to $10,000.

“We consider this very, very serious, especially when you have public servants [who are] supposed to be helping the people. . . and they’re out here committing felonies,” Oxendine said. “We’re very concerned how you would have 10 employees working in one office, in close proximity, all doing pretty much the same insurance scam.”

Oxendine said the workers claimed to have been disabled and out of work earlier this year for periods ranging from several weeks to several months.

“The employees all had one of two different types of alleged injuries,” Oxendine said. “They all said they were hit by a baseball bat, apparently watching a ballgame, and the other was that they had fallen, generally on stairs.”

About a dozen agents from Oxendine’s office, the Atlanta police Major Fraud Unit and Fulton County District Attorney’s office converged on the Englewood Avenue sewer maintenance facility late Thursday morning to begin making the arrests.

Theodore Travis of Decatur was called in from the field by dispatchers and arrested as he drove his city truck into the facility. He refused to comment as he was being placed in the back of an Atlanta police car.

Two others, Brian Bigby of Atlanta, and Devlin Olawumi of Riverdale, were also arrested at the sewer maintenance facility. Patrick Baker of Atlanta, turned himself in to Atlanta police elsewhere, said Glenn
Allen, a spokesman for the insurance commissioner’s office.
Allen said investigators were asking the other six employees, some of whom were on vacation or worked other shifts, to also turn themselves in.

Those employees were identified as Robert Coleman of Riverdale and George Givens of Atlanta, both supervisors, and Arthur Elder of Atlanta, Terry Cunningham of Riverdale, Michael Hickey of College Park and Cynthia Evans of Morrow.

If convicted, the workers could face prison terms of up to 10 years, Oxendine said.

“There’s no accusation that the city has done anything wrong, or provided misinformation, but within the group of 10, they were supporting each other’s story of not being at work,” said Robert J. Hunter, commissioner of Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management.

Ward said that while disciplinary action against the charged employees has not been determined, “I’m sure they will be suspended.

“Beyond that, there are procedures you have to follow and those will be followed, and if these people are found guilty of insurance fraud, then the department will do everything in its power to make sure these people do not work for the city of Atlanta,” Ward said.

Topics Claims