In these penny-pinching times, there may be nothing more noble than the weary worker who pulls down two paychecks to make ends meet. The problem for Duane Funtash was that he was forbidden to work at all.
The Painesville resident was receiving total disability benefits for a workplace injury when rumors he’d been moonlighting first surfaced with the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation in 2009.
Instead of just couch surfing with the Kardashians, Funtash was running operations for his wife’s catering company. Over 14 months, he was monitored by the bureau’s Special Investigations Department (motto: “Ensuring Ohioans don’t work since 1921”). Videos show him dressed in white caterer’s garb, making business deals, and handling water buckets and other gear — labor more suitable for folks not drawing a state paycheck for being broken of body.
“He was working, and he wasn’t supposed to be working at all,” the bureau’s Melissa Vince tells Scene.
Last month, Funtash pleaded guilty to a felony count of workers comp fraud. His punishment includes two years of community probation, plus a blow to the wallet: $67,340 in restitution and $9,470 in investigative costs.
Meantime, business has slowed for the family catering firm, where the phone has joined the ranks of the non-working.
This article appears in Sep 7-13, 2011.
I would dearly love to see the compassionless employees at the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation try to live on what they so graciously dole out to the men and women who have sustained injuries while working. I’m not denying that there are people who do defraud the BWC, but the people who find themselves in this situation through no fault of their own are often viewed with suspicion and disrespect. Added to which, the people who oversee the disabled person’s case don’t give a damn how the disabled person gets better or if they get better, frequently denying them treatments that would help them get off the benefits because the treatments cost too much, delaying payments for inane petty reasons, never returning calls… I could go on and on, as I have watched my son deal with the heartless insensitive “case workers” who have done nothing to really help get him on his feet since he was injured back in 2001. Instead they have denied legitimate viable treatments – like water therapy, physical therapy, counseling for depression – delayed his payments randomly and arbitrarily, and are never available to take a phone call, let alone return one. This system is humiliating and useless. The people overseeing it are heartless and useless as far as I am concerned. How about re-education for these injured people so that they could work at something that wouldn’t aggravate – what for my son will be life long – injuries?? Well of course not. That would make sense and actually serve a purpose. We can’t have that at OBWC. It’s no mystery why people pick up under the table jobs to supplement the pittance they are given to live on. It’s a cycle of despair and hopelessness.
K Powell
Wow K Powell, you are just so grateful that your son gets WC. How about the poor person who cant collect WC and has debilitating injuries? I guess the ZERO dollars they get is WAY better than WC, right? Stop complaining about BWC and the FREE money people get for laying on the couch. Rules are Rules jack. This story is about FRAUD and some jackass stealing the taxpayers money and all you can bitch and whine about is YOUR situation. My ass goes to work every friggin day with disabilities.
I don’t complain and blame everyone else or an Agency, or Obama. I suck it up like a friggin MAN and do what I have to do.
Quit blaming the system for the ignorance of the consumer.
Outstanding reply, Oooh-rah. Now let’s get the tens of thousands scamming the system that my taxes support/
The situation that caused someone to be on WC is irrelevant. What matters is that he was given WC on the order that he wouldn’t work while receiving these benefits. If it’s not enough money, then the person should not except the WC and cater (or whatever it is they’d like to do). However, I’m sure he understood this because he pleaded guilty. As long as there are humans on this Earth, there will be people trying to cheat the system for their own advancement.
Gee TheJoe. Where did you get the idea I was grateful?? Yeah I’m grateful my son decided to help pick up a 580# “MAN” off the floor and ruptured his discs. I’m so grateful he’s undergone 3 surgerys and fallen down his stairs because his leg goes numb. Good for you “Man”, for going to work with disabilities. This makes you better somehow. Not sure why. As for the poor person who can’t collect WC my heart goes out to them as well. It’s not a perfect system, but often times the people who find themselves in it have no choice. As for the story being about FRAUD, I offered a counter-point to it. That’s what discourse is about. And I was not bitching and whineing about MY situation, I was bitching and whining about my sons situation.
“blaming the system for the ignorance of the consumer”?? What the frick does that even mean?
To BMA: I appreciate your perspective. Perhaps this person didn’t have the option of picking up a catering job at the time he was injured. The opportunity may have presented itself later and, coupled with the money they are given to lay around on the couch, it was hard to resist. At least he was working. Because, and this was my original point, they weren’t trying to help him get better. I know what he did wasn’t the right thing. I’m only saying I can understand why it may have happened. Sometimes just trying to get a leg-up is too hard to resist.