Guy lies about jury duty to take 144 days off
May 22, 2008 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Employee Stealing, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
The law’s pretty clear about allowing employees time off for jury duty. But here’s a case of extreme abuse of that right.
An employee was called up for jury duty. He starting serving on the jury, but was excused from duty shortly after the trial began. Instead of going back to work, he pretended he still had to serve and kept taking time off.
Eventually he returned, but tried a similar scam a couple years later, this time by making his own phony court summons to show his boss. During that leave of absence, the employer got suspicious and told police. He was arrested, confessed to making fraudulent court documents and was sentenced to a big fine and some jail time.
All in all, he took a total of 144 days off with pay.
Stopping fraud
Courts take jury duty requirements pretty seriously, for obvious reasons. Firing employees who miss work for duty or coercing employees to refuse jury duty is an easy way for a company to get its own invitation to appear in court.
But that doesn’t mean there’s no way to stop abuse of the system. You can ask for verification when an employee requests time off, normally by asking to see a copy of the jury summons. Also, courts will provide a certificate of attendance to an employee for proof that he or she was serving on the jury.
With employees who will go so far as to make their own verification documents, there isn’t much an employer can do, other than being suspicious and taking a close look at employees’ documentation.
Tags: fraud, jury duty, paid leave abuse
May 28th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
In Illinois you are paid for your jury duty and we require the person to sign that check over to us and we pay them for the day.
This way we know that they served and for how long they were on jury duty.
July 9th, 2008 at 10:01 am
In Ohio the person will receive a summons which includes a number for the person to call each night to verify they are needed in court the following day with complete instructions. I have called this number to verify employees are indeed needed the following day in court.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Our state employees recieve pay for jury duty by the court and when certified by certificate from the court, we pay them also. JD time is counted as administrative leave. But they get paid twice.
August 27th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Our employees are able to use 20 days of company paid leave in a year for Jury duty. If for some reason they have to be out longer (like they get selected for a case that will have them out for 6 months), then we offset the money that they are being paid for Jury Duty, meaning we will deduct the money they are being paid from Jury Duty from their paycheck. We don’t have a lot of employees that have jury duty longer than 20 day. For the most part, it ends up being a day here and there. We do require that they present the notice in order to verify that they are needed.
December 17th, 2008 at 11:56 am
I would like to know how he got paid those 144 days for not being at work or on jury duty. Most employers in South Dakota and Wyoming will not pay you when you are on jury duty you only get the money from the court system. If it is going to be a great financial burden sometimes they will let you off of the jury with something in writting to that effect. If he wasn;t getting paid while off work during this time he surely would of went right back to work.