{"id":124259,"date":"2026-01-07T22:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T22:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/124259\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T22:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T22:26:08","slug":"oc-superior-court-judge-pleads-guilty-to-fraud-and-resigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/124259\/","title":{"rendered":"OC Superior Court Judge Pleads Guilty to Fraud and Resigns"},"content":{"rendered":"

OC Superior Court Judge Israel Claustro resigned Wednesday after federal prosecutors announced he agreed to plead guilty to fraud for working with a doctor to defraud the state\u2019s worker\u2019s comp program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his signed plea agreement, Claustro admitted he worked with Dr. Kevin Tien Do to defraud the state\u2019s Subsequent Injuries Benefits Trust Fund, which is aimed at offering \u201cadditional compensation to injured workers who already had a disability or impairment at the time of a subsequent injury,\u201d according to the plea agreement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To read the complete plea agreement, click here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Claustro announced he was \u201cvoluntarily resigning\u201d on Wednesday morning in a statement through his attorney Paul Meyer, saying he \u201cdeeply regrets\u201d his past actions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe takes full responsibility for his actions, and cooperated fully in the investigation,\u201d Meyer wrote. \u201cIn good faith, with sadness, he is voluntarily resigning his judicial office.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Do\u2019s attorney could not be reached for comment Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to federal prosecutors, Claustro owned a company called Liberty Medical Group Inc., and Do was working there by April 2016.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But in 2017, Do was suspended from participating as a physician in any worker\u2019s comp program because he was convicted of healthcare fraud in 2003 and served a year in prison \u2013 a fact prosecutors say Claustro was aware of when he hired him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite Do being cut out of the worker\u2019s comp program, Claustro still paid him over $300,000 to set up medical evaluations and med-legal reports, which federal prosecutors say were then submitted to the worker\u2019s comp program under other doctors\u2019 names.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to prosecutors, only around $38,000 of funds from the worker\u2019s comp program were paid out after Claustro knew Do was not eligible to submit those reports and that they were submitted under false names.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe parties agree that for purposes of this plea agreement, the applicable loss amount for Guidelines purposes from defendant\u2019s participation in this scheme to defraud is approximately $38,670, which is the amount of funds SIBTF paid to Liberty paid for reports that defendant knew Co-schemer Do had drafted after being suspended,\u201d prosecutors wrote in the plea agreement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Claustro could be sentenced for up to 20 years in prison for mail fraud, prosecutors agreed to \u201crecommend that defendant be sentenced to a term of probation with a condition of home confinement in lieu of imprisonment,\u201d as part of Claustro\u2019s plea agreement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The plea agreement also noted that Claustro could be prosecuted for criminal tax violations, with prosecutors noting the FBI, IRS and the California Department of Insurance are investigating Claustro as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Do also pleaded guilty to submitting a false tax return and conspiracy to commit mail fraud in January 2025, but has not yet been sentenced.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org. <\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OC Superior Court Judge Israel Claustro resigned Wednesday after federal prosecutors announced he agreed to plead guilty to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,6703,64867,55670,2267],"class_list":["post-124259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-county-government","tag-oc-superior-court","tag-orange-county-superior-court","tag-voice-of-oc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124259","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=124259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}