{"id":100572,"date":"2025-12-19T02:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T02:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/100572\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T02:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T02:47:09","slug":"chp-officer-pleads-guilty-to-insurance-fraud-sentenced-to-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/100572\/","title":{"rendered":"CHP officer pleads guilty to insurance fraud, sentenced to jail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

He told his physician he couldn\u2019t stand or sit without \u201csignificant pain,\u201d authorities say.<\/p>\n

Household chores were anything but routine.<\/p>\n

California Highway Patrol Officer Jordan Roy Lester claimed a medical retirement was the only recourse because of a debilitating injury, according to authorities. Then the department\u2019s internal affairs investigators observed Lester on property he\u2019d newly purchased cutting down trees, stacking firewood and operating heavy machinery.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward two years and the 17-year veteran pleaded guilty in Sacramento County court<\/a> on Wednesday to felony insurance fraud and was sentenced to 270 days in a county jail.<\/p>\n

Lester, 45, is also on two years\u2019 formal probation and has been ordered to pay $232,829 in restitution to the CHP and $127,791 to the state compensation insurance fund.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll also lose his service and pension credit for the years in which fraud was committed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take workers\u2019 compensation fraud very seriously as it has an immediate and lasting financial impact on employers and delays medical care and financial assistance to employees legitimately injured at work,\u201d Sacramento County Dist. Atty. Thien Ho said in a statement. <\/p>\n

Ho added: \u201cTo have a peace officer commit this fraud is not only a violation of their duty to serve and protect with integrity, but it is also a violation of public trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lester was arrested in Quincy<\/a>, in the Plumas National Forest of Northern California, in August 2024 after a multiyear investigation by the CHP\u2019s Workers\u2019 Compensation Fraud Investigation Unit. Lester filed a workers\u2019 compensation claim in July 2021, though his superiors said the injury was \u201cnot significant,\u201d according to the Sacramento County District Attorney\u2019s office. He was not taken off duty. <\/p>\n

Lester had been assigned to the CHP\u2019s Central Division but briefly was moved to Quincy, according to the CHP office there. The home he purchased was located in Quincy.<\/p>\n

On his days off he worked the property, according to the D.A.\u2019s office, and eventually reached out to a former officer about obtaining medical retirement, according to authorities.<\/p>\n

If he\u2019d succeeded in getting medical retirement, he would have received 85% of his salary for life, tax-free, the D.A.\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n

As a CHP officer, Lester earned more than $260,000 in pay and benefits in 2021, according to the public pay database Transparent California<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In January 2022, Lester visited a doctor to have his claim substantiated, authorities said. He immediately was taken off his normal shift. His fortunes unraveled not long after when investigators witnessed him on his property engaging in \u201cheavy physical activity,\u201d according to the D.A.\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

An independent medical examiner tested Lester in February 2024 and said that not only could Lester \u201cperform all work duties,\u201d but the CHP veteran also \u201cexaggerated his complaints,\u201d according to the D.A.\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

He was arrested six months later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He told his physician he couldn\u2019t stand or sit without \u201csignificant pain,\u201d authorities say. Household chores were anything…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6577,852,22574,54805,45494,54806,3816,48,52,51,54803,47,50,49,346,34401,7215,54804,8523,2902,72],"class_list":{"0":"post-100572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-authority","9":"tag-chp","10":"tag-chp-officer","11":"tag-compensation-claim","12":"tag-d-a","13":"tag-debilitating-injury","14":"tag-investigator","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-la-headlines","17":"tag-la-news","18":"tag-lester","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","21":"tag-los-angeles-news","22":"tag-office","23":"tag-pain","24":"tag-property","25":"tag-quincy","26":"tag-retirement","27":"tag-sacramento-county-district-attorney","28":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}