If you are receiving workers compensation benefits because you are injured or have become disabled due to an injury at work, it is certainly not in your best interest to work under the table while you are supposedly incapable of performing physical work.
This is a lesson former NYC maintenance worker, Cosmo Zingaropoli, learned the hard way. Zingaropoli was found to have earned a good living doing home improvement work and repairs while receiving around $70,000 in workers compensation benefits.
When you file for benefits claiming you are unable to work due to physical limitations caused by an on-the job injury, you should not be seeking supplemental income that can jeopardize your benefits claim. To do so can be constituted as fraud. In the case of Zingaropoli, the charges are even more severe and include grand larceny among others.
More and more compensation carriers are working with private investigators to catch offenders in the act. With the amount of fraud in the compensation system, carriers want to protect themselves from those looking to bilk the system. In many cases, what the private investigators are able to document on audio and video can be somewhat astounding. People have been found to be working some pretty hard jobs while still claiming to be unable to work so they can keep the benefits rolling in.
