Employers, employees, tax- payers, and insurance carriers all are heavily burdened by the costs of Workers’ Compensation insurance fraud in New York and in the rest of the tri-state area. As just one example, consider what Charles Kelcy Pegler Sr. admitted in a guilty plea entered just days ago in a New Jersey state court.
Pegler was the president of New Jersey-based Roof Diagnostics, Inc. (RDI), which employed about 400 people. In pleading guilty, Pegler admitted that between June 11, 2003 and Oct. 5, 2009, he created the false impression to New Jersey Casualty Insurance Company, a subsidiary of New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Company, that RDI was not a roofing company, that it did not employ roofers, and that it did not install, maintain, or repair roofs. An investigation by New Jersey’s insurance fraud prosecutor determined that, as a result, RDI paid $265,044 less in Workers’ Compensation insurance premiums than it should have paid.
