A 65-year-old Lake Forest man is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday morning for assault and insurance fraud after attacking a co-worker and falsely reporting being hit by a forklift, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s office.
Randal Brown McKay is charged with felony assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury with a sentencing enhancement for great bodily injury, three felony counts of insurance fraud and felony perjury, with a conviction possibly leading to an 11-year stay in state prison.
McKay on June 6, 2014, told a manager that a co-worker hit him with a forklift and, while the claim was being investigated, punched the forklift driver in the head as several witnesses watched, the OCDA alleges.
The victim of the attack received eight stitches at a medical clinic and suffered from a mild concussion and blurred vision, the OCDA claims.
McKay returned home, changed clothes, went to the Irvine Police Department and reported that he had been deliberately hit with a forklift by the driver McKay had roughed up, say prosecutors, who add police investigated and determined that the driver did not hit McKay with a forklift or anything else.
On June 11, 2014, McKay filed a claim with CompWest Insurance Co. alleging work related injuries for being struck by a forklift, and on July 14, 2015, he repeated the lie while under oath during a Worker’s Compensation Appeals Board trial, the OCDA says.
An administrative law judge determined McKay was not struck by a forklift and did not sustain any injuries, states the OCDA, which notes its own fraud investigation began after prosecutors were contacted by CompWest Insurance Company.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.
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