San Diego Contractor Ordered to Pay $475,000 to State Fund

San Diego Superior Court Judge David Danielsen has ordered the owner of a San Diego area construction company to pay $475,563 in restitution to the State Compensation Insurance Fund as part of his sentence for committing workers’ compensation insurance premium fraud. Damian L. Seiler, 57, a licensed general contractor and owner of the Pacific Home Co., was also given jail time of 365 days and sentenced to five years probation.

Seiler was also ordered to pay the State Employment Development Department $232,768 in restitution. State Fund also received an additional $951 to pay for its investigative costs. In all, Seiler was ordered to pay total restitution costs of $709,283.

Seiler established his company in Solana Beach in 2000 and specialized in condo conversions. The fraud was uncovered after Seiler filed a workers’ compensation claim for an employee, even though he had never reported any wages for the employee to State Fund. State Fund performed an audit of Seiler’s company and found irregularities. State Fund referred the suspected fraud case to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office in August 2005, and the DA’s Office subsequently served a search warrant on Pacific Home Company. As a result of the audit and the documents obtained from the search, it was determined that Seiler had underreported wages of his employees by more than $1.1 million in order to receive a lower insurance premium.

Source: SCIF