MARYLAND MAN SENTENCED TO THREE YEARS IN PRISON FOR WORKER'S COMPENSATION FRAUD

Washington, D.C. - Today, the Honorable Richard J. Leon, U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia, sentenced Sherman L. Berry, Jr., 51, of Forestville, Maryland, to 36 months of incarceration for perpetrating a 15-year fraud on the federal worker's compensation system. Following his term of imprisonment, Berry will be placed on supervised release for 36 months. He also will be required to pay the government restitution in the amount of $290,000.

A federal jury convicted Berry on February 1, 2007, of multiple counts of making false statements to the government and wire fraud. According to the government's evidence at trial, Berry engaged in a 15-year scheme to obtain worker's compensation benefits by defrauding the government. In November 1991, Berry suffered an injury to his toe while working at the U.S. Department of Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Following that injury, Berry regularly submitted a multitude of false physician reports in the names of fictitious doctors to obtain federal employees' compensation from the Department of Labor's Office of Worker's Compensation Programs (OWCP). Berry also submitted multiple annual certifications to OWCP in which he falsely asserted that he continued to suffer a total disability. The government's evidence at trial also established that Berry's fraud involved frustrating repeated efforts to provide him with vocational rehabilitation. As a result of his fraud, Berry received almost $300,000 tax-free from OWCP to which he was not entitled.

In announcing today's sentence U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor, Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Washington Field Office, Department of Labor Inspector General Gordon S. Heddell, and Department of Treasury Acting Inspector General Dennis S. Schindel praised the outstanding investigative efforts and assistance of Special Agent Troy W. Springer of the Department of Labor Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations, Special Agent Pat Blake of the Department of Treasury Office of Inspector General, and Special Agent Johnnie Jacobs of the FBI's Washington Field Office. They further commended Jeanie Latimore-Brown, April Peeler, and Dawn Tolson-Hightower of the U.S. Attorney's Office; former Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Rosen and Assistant U.S. Attorneys David Woll and Glen Donath, who prosecuted the case at trial.

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