Spring Valley plumber ordered to pay $1 million for workers’ comp fraud

A Spring Valley-based plumbing contractor was ordered Wednesday to pay $1 million in restitution after she pleaded guilty to workers’ compensation fraud, prosecutors said.

Daniela Birdwell, the owner of GPS Plumbing, pleaded guilty to workers’ compensation insurance premium fraud in connection to a scam she ran for multiple years, the District Attorney’s Office said.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Dwayne Moring ordered Birdwell to pay $10,000 a month until the restitution is resolved, officials said. She was also sentenced to two years of formal felony probation and 320 hours of community service.

“Employers who engage in premium fraud are not only breaking the law, they also gain an unfair advantage over their competitors,” District Attorney Summer Stephan said in a statement.

Birdwell did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Prosecutors said Birdwell used an insurer named State Fund to provide workers’ compensation insurance coverage from June 2016 through May 2021. The fraud was first noticed when the insurer’s investigation unit noticed a difference between the wages Birdwell reported to the Employment Development Department and the wages reported to State Fund for five years.

The company’s investigators performed an audit and discovered millions of dollars in unreported payroll, prosecutors said. The investigation was then handed over to the District Attorney’s Office and the Department of Insurance.

Officials said insurance fraud costs California $15 billion a year.

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