WESTMINSTER, CA – A former police officer out of California is facing over a dozen felony charges alongside a hefty lawsuit after officials claim she exaggerated a job-related injury which led to her collecting disability payments.
Former Westminster Police Officer Nicole Brown could likely find herself on the wrong side of a jail cell in the future, as the 39-year-old is currently facing decades in prison on top of a lawsuit where prosecutors allege she faked a disability claim linked to a purported on-the-job injury.
Back in May, the Orange County District Attorney's Office filed charges against Brown after evidence emerged which called into question her fully-disabled status that garnered the former officer approximately $600K in disability payments.
Brown reportedly suffered a cut on her forehead while handcuffing a suspect back in 2022, where she went on to call out sick several times in the days following the incident and wound up asserting a diagnosis of severe concussion syndrome.
In light of the medical diagnosis claimed, Brown didn’t return to work for over a year, all the while collecting her full salary without having to pay taxes on it, as well as reimbursement for her medical expenses.
But when word spread of Brown being seen dancing and drinking at the Stagecoach Music Festival in April of 2023 while purportedly being disabled, Brown’s former employer suspected her alleged disability was tantamount to a fraudulent ruse.
During the course of the initial investigation, authorities learned Brown had visited an emergency room in March of 2022 regarding the laceration to her forehead and was cleared by hospital staff to return to work without any restrictions on the very same day she visited the ER.
The Westminster Police Department referred the matter to Orange County District Attorney's Office, and the ensuing investigation uncovered far more than Brown allegedly attending just a music festival.
According to authorities, Brown had also participated in two 5K races, golf outings, trips to Disneyland, and even a snowboarding/skiing getaways at Mammoth and Big Bear while simultaneously claiming to be disabled.
For the sake of context, Brown’s claimed disability asserted she suffered from dizziness, constant headaches, and harbored a sensitivity to light.
A mere three days after Brown reportedly attended the music festival, she had joined a Zoom meeting where she went over what duties she could and couldn’t perform as an officer, claiming during the meeting that she wasn’t even able to look at a computer screen due to her sensitivity to light.
Authorities say Brown’s stepfather, Peter Gregory Schuman, is an attorney who specializes in workers' compensation claims and had assisted Brown in achieving the alleged disability scheme.
Schuman would routinely speak on Brown’s behalf during the disability claim process, according to authorities, and helped orchestrate the alleged phony medical diagnosis.
For his alleged role in the matter, Schuman is currently facing eight years in prison for assisting Brown in the alleged plot as well as filing a fraudulent insurance claim.
As for Brown, aside from the lawsuit aiming to reclaim the $600K in disability benefits she purportedly gained fraudulently, the former officer is facing up to 22 years in prison on nine counts of making a fraudulent statement to obtain compensation and six counts of making a fraudulent insurance benefit claim, with an additional aggravated white collar crime enhancement.
Brian Gurwitz, the attorney representing Brown, issued a brief statement regarding the criminal charges, saying, “Ms. Brown is not guilty of this what the prosecution has alleged. She was seriously injured on duty and intends to fight these allegations.”
