Sacramento, CA – California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones recently announced that Teresa Reif, 34, of Redwood City, has been sentenced for insurance premium fraud. Reif, who originally plead no contest to eight felony counts, was sentenced in San Mateo County Superior Court to serve one year in jail, five years probation as well as being ordered to pay over $2 million in restitution to the insurers that she defrauded.
According to investigators from the California Department of Insurance (CDI), in April of 2011, Reif was the president of Genesis Building Services, Inc. which operated a janitorial and pest control company in the Bay Area. An investigation which lasted several years found that Reif had misrepresented the number of employees at the company as well as its actual payroll when applying for workers’ compensation insurance to its insurer. The insurer received conflicting statements from Genesis staff regarding the actual number of employees at the company. Based on these conflicting reports, the insurer notified CDI and the fraud division began an investigation which eventually led to the arrest of Reif.
The case was prosecuted by the San Mateo County District Attorney’s office.
Source: CA DOI