Judge Tosses Out Comp Fraud Charges against Claims Examiner

An Oneida County, N.Y., judge last week dismissed charges of insurance and workers' compensation fraud against a Utica First Insurance Co. claims examiner, The Utica Observer-Dispatch reported Tuesday.The newspaper said Judge Barry Donalty ruled prosecutors failed to prove that Gordon Riebe "willfully exaggerated" back injuries he sustained after slipping in an icy parking lot in February 2008.Donalty said prosecutors failed to call medical experts to testify at a grand jury hearing on the case and relied on a hearsay interpretation by an insurance fraud investigator."The fraud investigato...