Criminal record likely to remain in fake work injury

A man who staged a workplace injury with medical costs totally nearly $30,000 will not have the opportunity to expunge his criminal record after a New Jersey court denied his request to enter the state’s pretrial intervention program.

In State v. Goldinsky, the New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division on Wednesday dismissed the 57-year-old man’s claims that he was unfairly denied entry to the program.

In 2018, Mr. Goldinsky was in the cafeteria at the New Jersey company where he was working as an independent contractor when he claimed he slipped and fell on ice and sustained injuries. He was transported to a hospital — at a cost of $563 to his health insurer — and contended that the fall caused him to develop a speech stutter, constant headaches, heavy eyelids and painful spasms. His hospital and neurologist bills, submitted to the company’s workers compensation insurer, totaled more than $23,000.

Later, the company found via surveillance video that Mr. Goldinsky filled a cup with ice, threw it on the floor and laid down on top of it.

He was charged with three third-degree counts of insurance fraud, health care fraud and deception and a fourth-degree count of attempted theft by deception.

Mr. Goldinsky pleaded guilty to third-degree insurance fraud and was sentenced to two years of probation and restitution. He applied to the pretrial intervention program, but his entry was denied by the prosecutor on the basis that his admittance would “depreciate the seriousness of his conduct.”

Mr. Goldinsky appealed the decision, but an appellate court affirmed the denial.

The appellate court held that he did not show that the denial of his application was a “gross abuse of discretion” or an error in judgment. The court affirmed the prosecution’s conclusion that Mr. Goldinsky’s “inability to acknowledge his wrongdoing, minimization of the offense, and unwillingness to make amends, demonstrate a lack of amenability to the rehabilitation process.”