STATEN ISLAND — This guy's scam got dealt a blow.
A Verizon worker collected more than $37,000 in workers' comp while teaching kickboxing in a Staten Island dojo.
Eugene Reems, 49, of Midland Beach, pleaded guilty Monday to stealing the workers' compensation while teaching classes at CKO Kickboxing in Westerleigh, Staten Island, state Inspector General Cathrine Leahy Scott and Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon announced.
Among evidence gathered was video showing him using his martial arts skills on a punching bag.
"This defendant’s repeated assertions that he was physically unable to work as a telephone company lineman, while at the same time demonstrating kicks and power punches as a martial arts instructor, was a brazen fraud perpetrated on a critical safety net meant for honest hard-working New Yorkers," Leahy Scott said in a statement.
In 2007, Reems claimed he was injured while working as a lineman for Verizon on Staten Island and started to collect workers' compensation, prosecutors said.
His wife and cousin opened CKO Kickboxing in Westerleigh in 2012 and Reems taught classes there until 2014, prosecutors said.
During that time he repeatedly claimed to physicians that he was incapacitated and unable to work.
Reems was arrested and pleaded guilty to petit larceny on Monday, prosecutors said.
He agreed to pay $37,500 restitution and cannot receive any workers' compensation benefits in the future.
