CHP officer said his pain warranted retirement. Then investigators saw how he spent his free time
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He told his physician he couldn’t stand or sit without “significant pain,” authorities say.Household chores were anything but routine.California Highway Patrol Officer Jordan Roy Lester claimed a medical retirement was the only recourse because of a debilitating injury, according to authorities.Then the department’s internal affairs investigators observed Lester on property he’d newly purchased cutting down trees, stacking firewood and operating heavy machinery.Fast-forward two years and the 17-year veteran pleaded guilty in Sacramento County court on Wednesday to felony insurance fraud and was sentenced to 270 days in a county jail.Lester, 45, is also on two years’ formal probation and has been ordered to pay $232,829 in restitution to the CHP and $127,791 to the state compensation insurance fund.
Business A group of California homeowners filed suit Wednesday against AAA and USAA, alleging that the insurers left them systematically underinsured and unable to rebuild after the Jan.7 firestorms in Los Angeles County destroyed their homes.He’ll also lose his service and pension credit for the years in which fraud was committed.“We take workers’ compensation fraud very seriously as it has an immediate and lasting financial impact on employers and delays medical care and financial assistance to employees legitimately injured at work,” Sacramento County Dist.
Atty.Thien Ho said in a statement.
Ho added: “To have a peace officer commit this fraud is not only a violation of their duty to serve and protect with integrity, but it is also a violation of public trust.”Lester was arrested in Quincy, in the Plumas National Forest of Northern California, in August 2024 after a multiyear investigation by the CHP’s Workers’ Compensation Fraud Investigation Unit.Lester filed a workers’ compensation claim in July 2021, though his superiors said the injury was “no...