Police officer partied at music festival and ran 5K races while she collected $600,000 for fake injury, California DA says

A Southern California police officer was caught partying at the Stagecoach Music Festival while collecting more than $600,000 in workers’ compensation for a head injury that prosecutors allege was faked.

Westminster officer Nicole Brown, 39, was charged Monday with 15 felonies of workers’ compensation and insurance fraud, the Orange County District Attorney’s office said in a news release. She faces up to 22 years in prison if convicted.

Brown was on the job March 21, 2022, when she received a “minor abrasion” to her forehead while trying to arrest an uncooperative suspect, according to prosecutors. She told her watch commander.that she had a headache and was feeling dizzy.

Though an emergency room doctor who examined her that day released her back to work without restrictions, she called out sick for several days and was diagnosed with a severe concussion about a week after the initial injury. She was placed on Total Temporary Disability, which made her eligible to receive her full salary for up to a year and two-thirds of her sThree days after the festival, Brown and her stepfather attended a Zoom meeting where she sat in a dark room and said she was unable to look at the screen. Her stepfather said she still could not do paperwork or take phone calls. After the meeting, she was admitted to an inpatient center for traumatic brain injury.

Prosecutors say Brown collected more than $600,000 from the city of Westminster, which includes her full salary and medical expenses.

Her stepfather Peter Schuman, 57, of Buena Park, has also been charged with two felonies related to insurance fraud and helping commit a crime.