The owner of a Des Moines firm that provides companies with temporary employees has been sentenced to nearly five years in federal prison in a scheme to reduce the cost of his workers’ compensation insurance.
The U.S. attorney’s office says DES Staffing President Dinesh Sethi, of Ankeny, was sentenced to 57 months in prison. He pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud last September.
Sethi acknowledged that he participated in a scheme to avoid paying nearly $779,000 in workers’ compensation premiums to Travelers Insurance and Liberty Mutual between 2006 and 2009 by giving false information to the insurers to calculate the firm’s premiums.
In particular, he admitted that he and his director of finance shifted payroll from high-premium classification codes to lower-premium codes such as clerical workers.
DES Staffing Services has offices in five states. Sethi pleaded not guilty to federal fraud charges in January 2011. He was originally indicted on five counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Topics Fraud Workers' Compensation
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