Staffer accused of cheating companies

A Costa Mesa woman could be sentenced to more than four years in jail if convicted of helping her co-workers defraud insurance companies out of thousands of dollars, according to county prosecutors.

Lam Thi Nguyen, 37, was arrested last week on suspicion of conspiracy to commit a crime and one misdemeanor of practicing law without authorization after district attorney investigators conducted an undercover operation to find professionals suspected of defrauding insurance companies.

On March 27, 2007, investigators went into L&M Legal Services/Law Offices of Walter Martinez in Westminster, where Nguyen and another woman referred them to a chiropractor for “treatment,” officials said.

Nguyen also told the undercover investigators not to tell insurance companies about their “traffic accident” even after they had revealed their accident report had false information on it, authorities said.

The undercover agents were later instructed to sign documents showing they had made visits to the chiropractor’s office when they hadn’t, so the office workers could charge insurance companies, authorities said. The chiropractor’s office is accused of fraudulently charging insurance companies about $4,000. In a second charge, the office charged between $17,000 and $18,000. Less than a year later, Nguyen and her co-worker split $13,500 in checks from the charges, prosecutors said.

Nguyen was the last to be charged of her four co-defendants. She is scheduled to be arraigned June 4.