A South Florida woman was convicted of fraud and sentenced Wednesday to 18 months probation after video showed her hitting herself in the head with a sprinkler that the fell from the ceiling at her place of employment.
The surveillance video of the incident was recorded at Cinque Terre Energy Partners on Oct. 1, 2015.
It shows the sprinkler head falling from the ceiling onto the desk of Sheyla Veronica White.
White then grabs the sprinkler, looks at it for a while, makes sure she is alone in the room, then smashes the sprinkler onto her forehead.
White attempted to fraudulently collect workers’ compensation payments following what she claimed was an on-the-job injury.
She said the sprinkler fell from the ceiling, bounced off her desk and struck her in the head.
Her employer, Cinque Terre Energy Partners, LLC promptly filed a compensation claim related to the injury.
However, video surveillance footage later showed that she injured herself.
Cinque Terre’s insurance company, AmTrust North America, said they grew suspicious of White’s claim and referred the case to the Division of Investigative and Forensic Services to investigate.
DIFS detectives requested surveillance video from Cinque Terre’s security cameras, which confirmed AmTrust’s suspicions that the claim was a ruse.
The Department of Financial Services’ Division of Investigative and Forensic Services said she was arrested on Aug. 5, 2016.
She was charged with two counts of workers’ compensation fraud and had faced up to five years in prison.
White was previously arrested in 2010 and accused of stealing students’ personal identification information while working as a teacher at Monarch High School in Coconut Creek.