The head of a Modesto, Calif., temporary staffing firm was convicted of felony workers’ compensation insurance premium fraud, Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager announced.

Aileen Ramirez, age 31, of Denair, Calif., was the owner and CEO of Quality Employment Services LLC. She obtained a workers’ compensation policy for her business from the California State Compensation Insurance Fund in February 2012 and maintained that policy through August 2014. According to the District Attorney, a State Fund audit of the policy found Ramirez underreported her payroll and total number of employees in order to obtain a lower workers’ compensation insurance premium; in total, Ramirez underreported $2.8 million dollars in payroll that resulted in a loss to the State Fund of $525,253.58 in insurance premiums.

In April of 2016, Ramirez was charged with insurance fraud in Stanislaus County Superior Court. In February 2018, she pleaded no contest to knowingly making false and fraudulent material statements to State Fund for the purposes of determining and reducing the premium, cost or rate of her workers’ compensation insurance policy. Ramirez was sentenced to 120 hours of community service and three years formal probation, and ordered to pay restitution of $525,253.58 to the State Compensation Insurance Fund.