Belmar Woman Sentenced in Disability Fraud Case

A Belmar woman is headed to state prison after being sentenced Friday for submitting a claim containing fraudulent information to the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development in order to collect state temporary disability insurance monies to which she was not entitled.

Jennifer Massimo-Ruiz, 32, was sentenced to four years in state prison by Superior Court Judge Robert J. Mega in Union County, John J. Hoffman, Acting New Jersey Attorney General announced Friday in a statement.  The sentence was based on Massimo-Ruiz’s Sept. 9 guilty plea to third-degree insurance fraud. The charge was contained in a July 25, 2013 state grand jury indictment.

Massimo-Ruiz admitted in court today that she submitted three letters to Mega falsely stating that she had cancer, the statement said. She also admitted to forging the signatures of two doctors on the letters.

Massimo-Ruiz said that she submitted the letters in an effort to avoid or influence the pending sentencing. As a result of the letters, the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor and the defendant reached a revised plea agreement in which the state recommended that Massimo be sentenced to four years in state prison rather than three years to which the state had previously agreed in September.

In pleading guilty on Sept. 9, 2013, Massimo-Ruiz admitted that on or about April 19, 2010, she submitted a claim form to the Department of Labor and Workforce Development containing fraudulent information. As a result of the fraud, Massimo-Ruiz received $8,819 in disability insurance benefits to which she was not entitled. 

According to prosecutors, New Jersey`s temporary disability law requires that a person be employed in the past year in order to be eligible for temporary disability benefits. An investigation by the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor determined that Massimo-Ruiz had not been employed during the 52 weeks prior to submitting her application for temporary disability benefits. The investigation, authorities said, revealed that Massimo-Ruiz falsely stated that she was employed as an office manager from 2008 to 2010 and was therefore eligible for temporary disability insurance benefits when she went out on maternity leave, starting in March 2010. The company for which Massimo-Ruiz purported to be working was owned by her family members.