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# Santa Monica cop found guilty of insurance fraud
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/santa-monica-cop-found-guilty-of-insurance-fraud/
- Published: 2002-07-17T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:31:34.000Z
- Author: Carolyn Sackariason
- Tags: Crime, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Patrol officer terminated, ordered to pay city $50K*

A former Santa Monica Police officer was convicted Monday of insurance fraud for lying about his worker’s compensation injury claims.

Richard Robert Brulato, 36, plea bargained with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office to have 14 felony counts reduced to one felony count of insurance fraud, which he pleaded guilty to. He was ordered to pay $50,000 in restitution to the city of Santa Monica, serve one day in jail, complete 200 hours of community service and pay $200 in fines. Brulato has been placed on three years felony probation.

The DA’s office charged Brulato with insurance fraud, attempted perjury, grand theft and attempted grand theft relating to false disability claims he made to the city of Santa Monica in 1999 and 2000\. Brulato suffered back injuries on the job in August of 1999 and April 2000 while he was arresting combative prisoners, according to Barbara Trujillo, the city’s worker’s compensation administrator. Brulato filed for worker’s compensation and received payments totaling $103,000, Trujillo said.

But city personnel became suspicious of Brulato’s claims when he appeared in an advertisement in a LA magazine promoting his new pizza parlor in the Los Angeles area while he was on disability and worker’s comp leave. The magazine advertisement was anonymously slipped under an office door of a SMPD detective.

The SMPD’s internal division, the city’s risk management department and the California Department of Insurance launched an extensive investigation in September 2000.

“We admitted liability to his injuries but after investigating, we felt he was exaggerating his injuries,” Trujillo said. “The totality of the evidence proved that his was a fraud case. We assigned surveillance and it’s our opinion he lied about his injuries. We had 44 hours of surveillance film depicting him actively working.”

The evidence collected by Trujillo’s office and the SMPD was turned over to the DA’s office, who then filed charges against Brulato in 2001.

Brulato requested a jury trial and one was scheduled to begin this week in downtown Los Angeles, but for unknown reasons, Brulato decided to make a deal with the DA. Brulato’s criminal defense attorney, Bill Seki, didn’t return phone calls from the Daily Press.

Brulato officially was terminated from the SMPD on Monday, although he was placed on paid administrative leave shortly after the investigation was launched. Once he answered to criminal charges with the DA’s office, Brulato was placed on unpaid administrative leave.

Brulato agreed to drop all existing and future claims against the city. He paid the $50,000 restitution in the form of a check after Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ruth Kwan sentenced him Monday.

Because the city paid out more than $100,000 to Brulato — which doesn’t include the salaries of city personnel who investigated the case — the plea bargain was indeed a compromise, Trujillo said.

Brulato, a patrol officer who was with the SMPD for five years and had two previous years of experience elsewhere, won’t likely be pursuing his career in law enforcement.

“Brulato will never be able to work as a police officer in California because he was convicted of a felony,” said SMPD Lt. Frank Fabrega. “With felony convictions you lose basic rights that we take for granted, like voting.”

Santa Monica Police Officer Gabriel Suarez was convicted last September after pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges relating to felony counts of worker’s comp fraud, grand theft and money laundering. He was sentenced to one year in Los Angeles County Jail, ordered to pay $112,000 in restitution to the city and put on probation for five years. Suarez served eight months and is now out of jail, Fabrega said.

The convictions of two police officers show the city and the SMPD’s vigilance in prosecuting fraudulent actions by their employees, Fabrega said.

“The majority of personnel here are hard working, conscientious and honest,” he said. “Those who defraud the system will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Fabrega said SMPD Police Chief James T. Butts, Jr. takes very seriously fraudulent actions by city employees.

“He sends the clear message that behavior like this will not be tolerated,” Fabrega said. “There’s nobody above the law and that’s proven by the convictions of Brulato and Suarez.”

The cases also send a message to doctors who may want to engage in fraudulent actions relating to disability claims.

“This sends out a message to the medical community that we investigate fraudulent claims,” Fabrega said.

Trujillo said there are about 400 worker’s comp claims filed each year with the city. Since 1992, there have been five worker’s comp fraud cases filed and all of them have delivered convictions, Trujillo said.

“We mean business,” she said.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 17, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/071702.pdf?ref=smdp.com)