UTICA, N.Y. — New York State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott has announced the sentencing of an Oneida County trucker, who was recently employed by New York State, on charges he falsely testified under oath and defrauded the state workers’-compensation system while receiving nearly $8,000 in insurance benefits to which he was not entitled.
Roger M. Decker Jr., 48, of Lee Center, was sentenced last Thursday in Utica City Court to three years of probation and full restitution of $7,875 for his August plea to the crime of perjury in the third degree. The plea was in full satisfaction of all charges filed against him.
“This defendant’s repeated fraud and deceit were part of a shameless scheme meant solely to enrich himself with financial benefits he did not deserve,” Leahy Scott said in a release.
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An investigation by Leahy Scott’s office found that Decker was injured while working for an Oneida County trucking company in 2004 and shortly thereafter stopped working and started collecting workers’-compensation benefits. Decker repeatedly submitted falsified forms to the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) and his physician in 2016 and 2017 and testified at a WCB hearing that he had not worked for more than a decade when he was in fact working for “at least two” trucking companies, the release stated. In total, Decker received $7,875 in workers’-compensation benefits in 2016 that he was not supposed to receive.
Additionally, the investigation found that Decker submitted documents in late 2017 as part of his job application for a highway maintenance worker position he obtained with the New York State Department of Transportation that falsely indicated that he had never been injured while on the job. Decker was fired from that position upon his arrest in June while still under a period of probationary employment.
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