Waynesboro Chiropractor Sentenced to Prison for False Personal Injury Claim |
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U.S. Attorney’s Office
25 June 2014
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, announced that a Waynesboro, PA chiropractor was sentenced today to five months in prison followed by five months of home detention for submitting a bogus personal injury claim to an insurance carrier.
In December 2013 Lawrence S. Herman, age 47, a resident of Frederick, Maryland and the owner/operator of “Herman Chiropractic” in Waynesboro, PA, pleaded guilty to a one-count Information charging him with False Statements in Health Care Matters. The plea was entered by Herman pursuant to an agreement with the government.
Herman was sentenced to the 5 months in prison followed by 5 months of home detention term by Senior United States District Court Judge Sylvia H. Rambo in Harrisburg. Judge Rambo also ordered Herman to serve one year on supervised release following his prison term and to pay a $600 fine and $100 special assessment.
The charges stemmed from a claim Herman submitted to the USAA insurance company in May of 2012 for injuries allegedly suffered in an August 16, 2011 automobile accident in Maryland. In May of 2012 Herman supported his claim with records that represented he had been treated by a chiropractor for neck and back injuries between August of 2011 and January of 2012. When USAA did not honor the claim, Herman hired a Baltimore area law firm and demanded $60,000 from USAA - $17,527 for reimbursement of his chiropractic treatment expenses and the remainder for pain and suffering.
During his guilty plea hearing Herman admitted the chiropractic treatment records were phony and were created, at his direction, by a chiropractor who worked for him in his Waynesboro office. To conceal the fact the chiropractor was his employee, Herman submitted the phony treatment records to USAA under a fictitious business letterhead he created. Herman was not seriously injured in the minor, fender-bender type accident; he participated in several 5K, 10K, Half-Marathon and Marathon foot races during the time period when he was supposedly being treated for his back and neck injuries between September and November of 2011.
The case was investigated by the Harrisburg Office of the FBI and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kim Douglas Daniel.