Elsewhere: Ex-S.F. schools worker held in fraud case Chron
A former San Francisco Unified School District employee was arrested today on suspicion of fraudulently distributing public money.
Leticia James Coral, 56, surrendered at the San Francisco County jail today for the alleged crimes, which took place between 1999 and 2003, according to the California Department of Insurance.
Coral allegedly issued $85,000 of public money to an injured school district employee in permanent disability advances, while knowing she was overpaying the injured worker by more than $76,000, the insurance department said.
The injured worker was in fact found to be entitled only to $9,320 in permanent disability advances.
Insurance investigators began looking into the case in 2009 when Tristar Risk Management, a third-party administrator of workers’ compensation claims hired to administer claims in San Francisco in 2004, suspected fraud.
The injured worker told Tristar that she had loaned half the permanent disability payments to Coral, and said she didn’t know her claim wasn’t worth that much, according to the insurance department.
She said she had tried to get in touch with Coral several times to get back the money she had loaned to Coral, but Coral never paid the money back to the injured worker.
Upon her arrest today, Coral’s bail was set at $75,000.
