{"id":16807,"date":"2016-10-28T17:34:14","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T22:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=16807"},"modified":"2016-10-28T17:34:14","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T22:34:14","slug":"former-washington-postal-worker-charged-in-350000-health-insurance-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2016\/10\/28\/former-washington-postal-worker-charged-in-350000-health-insurance-theft\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Washington Postal Worker Charged In $350,000 Health Insurance Theft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; list-style: none; color: #333333; font-size: 1.1em; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;\">OLYMPIA, Wash. \u2013 Felony charges were filed against five people after insurance fraud investigations by Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler\u2019s<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>Special Investigations Unit (SIU).<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; list-style: none; color: #333333; font-size: 1.1em; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;\"><strong>Juelene Perez Owens<\/strong><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>(Perez), 37, of Mossyrock, was charged with first-degree theft in Lewis County<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>Superior Court. According to the investigation, Perez enrolled her boyfriend, Jose P. Lopez, on the health insurance provided through her employer, the <strong>U.S. Postal Service<\/strong>, when she was hired in 2004. She indicated on the enrollment form that she and Lopez were married, even though they\u2019ve never been married.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-16809\" src=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Juelene-Perez-Owens.jpg\" alt=\"juelene-perez-owens\" width=\"335\" height=\"417\" srcset=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Juelene-Perez-Owens.jpg 335w, https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Juelene-Perez-Owens-241x300.jpg 241w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 335px) 100vw, 335px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; list-style: none; color: #333333; font-size: 1.1em; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;\">In 2011, Lopez submitted an updated enrollment form, again listing Lopez as her husband. In June 2014, USPS requested a marriage certificate from Perez; she said she didn\u2019t have one because she thought they were married under common law. The health insurance plan paid more than $350,000 in medical and prescription claims for Lopez. The U.S. Postal Service and U.S. Office of Personnel Management Offices of Inspector General referred and assisted Kreidler\u2019s SIU with this investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OLYMPIA, Wash. \u2013 Felony charges were filed against five people after insurance fraud investigations by Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler\u2019s\u00a0Special Investigations Unit (SIU). Juelene Perez Owens\u00a0(Perez), 37, of Mossyrock, was charged with first-degree theft in Lewis County\u00a0Superior Court. According to the investigation, Perez enrolled her boyfriend, Jose P. Lopez, on the health insurance provided through her [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","category-theftandfraud","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16810,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16807\/revisions\/16810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}