Mass. Employer Sentenced to Read Book for Lying About Work Safety

Worcester (Massachusetts) Superior Court Judge Francis Fecteau has sentenced a Templeton man to two and one-half years for committing perjury in a workers’ compensation claim proceeding at the Department of Industrial Accidents.

The judge also ordered the man to read the book “Integrity” by author Stephen Carter and write a 1,000-word essay.

The man was found guilty of forging a document to show he had provided employees with safety goggles, according to investigators.

Alan Koren, age 43, was sentenced to two and one half years in the House of Correction, with the sentence suspended for three years. The state had requested that Koren be sentenced to serve 18 months in the House of Correction.

Judge Fecteau also ordered Koren to read the book “Integrity” by author Stephen Carter, to write a 1,000-word essay on the book and to publicly speak three times about his wrongdoings.

Koren was owner of now-defunct Wood Technology, Inc. in Gardner. In July 1998, an employee at Wood Technology sustained a serious eye injury causing him to lose his eye on the job. The employee filed a claim for workers’ compensation benefits but that claim was denied, and the employee subsequently commenced a suit at the DIA.

One of the issues before the DIA was whether Wood Technology provided its employees, including the injured worker, with safety glasses before he injured his eye in the 1998 accident. In preliminary proceedings before the DIA, Koren argued that he had provided safety glasses to all his employees before the accident. In support of his position, Koren submitted an apparent invoice from a safety supply products company which was dated July 28, 1997.

However, before the DIA trial commenced, the employee’s attorney obtained evidence which demonstrated that the 1997 invoice was forged. During his testimony under oath at the DIA, Koren falsely stated that he never looked at, touched, or altered the 1997 invoice.
At trial, a former Wood Technology employee testified that Koren altered the date on the invoice for an order of safety glasses by using white-out and making copies of it so the alteration was not visible.

Judge John G. Preston of the DIA ultimately ruled in favor of the injured employee and ordered double damages in the case.

Koren was indicted by a Suffolk County Grand Jury on Sept. 12, 2005. Koren’s trial began on March 5 and continued over four days.

Source: Mass. Attorney General