The owner of a Mansfield freight hauling and trucking company must pay $144,400 in restitution to the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) following his sentence Monday for his conviction on four felony charges related to workers’ compensation fraud.
A Richland County judge also ordered Robert Tate, owner of Elite TNT Enterprises, to serve two years of probation for his conviction February 20 on two counts of workers’ comp fraud, fourth-degree felonies, and two counts of tampering with records, third-degree felonies.
Tate must bring his BWC policy into compliance with state law and pay the agency $137,447 in unpaid policy premiums and $6,953 for the costs of its investigation.
“We reached out to Mr. Tate several times to follow the law and protect his employees with workers’ compensation coverage, but he chose to ignore us and it cost him,” said BWC Administrator/CEO Stephanie McCloud.
BWC’s special investigations department discovered in 2017 that Tate was operating his business without BWC coverage. After several attempts to work with Tate, agents subpoenaed bank records and audited his business, finding Tate under-reported his payroll over several payroll periods in an attempt to lower the amount he owed the agency. They also found he falsified new applications for BWC coverage by failing to list previous policies with the agency and he under-reported the number of workers he employed.
Source: Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation
