Judge will resign after allegedly paying convicted doctor over $300K to work on workers' comp cases
A California judge will resign after pleading guilty to a felony mail fraud charge for allegedly hiring a physician convicted of health care fraud to prepare medical records to submit to the state’s workers’ compensation program. (Image from Shutterstock)
A California judge will resign after pleading guilty to a felony mail fraud charge for allegedly hiring a physician convicted of health care fraud to prepare medical records to submit to the state’s workers’ compensation program, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
According to Law360, Orange County Superior Court Judge Israel Claustro, 50, while working as an Orange County, California, prosecutor, operated Liberty Medical Group despite not being a physician or a medical professional as required under California state law, and his company employed Dr. Kevin Tien Do, 60, of Pasadena, California, a physician with a 2003 felony health care fraud conviction and one year of federal prison time.
Despite knowing Do’s history, Claustro paid him more than $300,000 for preparing medical evaluations, medical record reviews and medical legal reports, according to the story.
Claustro agreed to resign from the bench by Jan. 12, while the government offered probation “with a condition of home confinement in lieu of imprisonment for a period equal to that of the low end of the applicable sentencing guidelines range,” Law360 reports, noting that felony mail fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Do has also been charged in this scheme, pleading guilty in January 2025 pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and one count of subscribing to a false tax return, the story says, adding that he has not been sentenced.
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