The presentations started with San Diego, then Los Angeles and Orange County and so on, all spelling out in detail their success at prosecutions, until the last presentation was given. New to the presentations was Humboldt County which had not participated in prior years.

The mantra was the same; We need Mo-Money, Mo-Money, Mo-Money! It would appear from past history that the DA's were only getting half of what they were asking for from this multi-million dollar pot-of-gold that is financed from mandatory surcharges placed on all insurance policies sold in the state.

But of great concern is just precisely how many of these prosecutions were totally bogus. How many of these cases represented injured workers who were totally innocent. How many working Californians had their lives ruined and their reputations smeared, and were falsely accused of insurance fraud so that these DA's would have statistics to display before this panel?

But then you say to yourself, "these are our District Attorneys, and they are here to protect the people." We say from whom?

I think Edward Abbey put it best when he said "A patriot must be ready to defend his country against his government!"

The newly formed California Insurer Fraud Task Force, (www.stopinsurerfraud.com) a private organization that has been aiding and assisting attorneys whose clients are accused of Workers Compensation fraud with litigation support services, has found that in most of the cases that they have reviewed, the investigations have been totally botched from the start and a significant amount appear to simply be retaliation by insurers caught with their fingers in the cookie jar, violating the constitutionally mandated rights of these occupationally injured Californians!

Are these District Attorneys simply taking the work product of these insurance company SIU's (Special Investigation Units) and rubber stamping them for prosecution which creates an inherent conflict of interests or are they really performing unbiased independent investigations?

Have you ever gone to a DA's office with an over-the-counter complaint about an insurance carrier violating the law and been treated like a total nut case?

What about a common standard of accountability under the law? When an injured worker makes a memory mistake it's called fraud and they are arrested and thrown into jail faster than you can say "mea culpa!" But when the insurance company hires a med-legal doctor who uses more of his creative writing skills than his medical skills and falsifies statements that the defense attorney swears are true, they are simply called opinions.

In the last year, a police department employee on the San Francisco peninsula had a conviction overturned when the Court of Appeals unanimously overturned a Superior Court verdict where the judge improperly instructed the jury. This, from a seasoned jurist who incidentally retired from the bench after the completion of this case. A first year law student wouldn't have made that mistake!

And what about cities, towns, municipalities, school districts and joint powers authorities who will hide behind the State Government Code when committing all kinds of malicious atrocities against their employees when they are faced with the likelihood of a large permanent disability payout on an occupational injury case? Read the trade newspapers and websites. It happens every day!

How can the State Department of Fair Employment and Housing find evidence that an employer committed perjury and forged documents yet the DOI Insurance Fraud Unit finds no evidence of wrongdoing? Don't they interpret and enforce the same laws?