Staff
March 21, 2026
A former corrections officer will serve three years of probation after being convicted of workers’ compensation fraud for claiming injuries that surveillance footage proved never occurred.
Jennifer Bardin-Lapan was sentenced in Washington County Court after pleading guilty to violating Workers Compensation Law §114. She collected nearly $70,000 in public benefits by falsifying claims about workplace injuries, according to New York State Inspector General Lucy Lang.
Bardin-Lapan reported in November 2022 that she injured her back, knee and groin during a use-of-force incident with an incarcerated individual at the Great Meadow Correctional Facility. She provided multiple inconsistent accounts of how she sustained the injuries to various medical providers and independent examiners.
Video evidence obtained by the Inspector General’s Office showed no fall, physical trauma or contact matching her injury descriptions. Before benefits were suspended, Bardin-Lapan received $69,874.48 in workers’ compensation and contractual payments.
As part of her sentence, she paid $24,000 in restitution and signed a waiver permanently forfeiting any future workers’ compensation benefits related to her claim. The sentence requires her to pay an additional $16,000 in restitution within 90 days, bringing total restitution to $40,000.
“Lying to receive workers’ compensation is a crime that undermines necessary protections intended for workers who are genuinely injured on the job,” Lang said. “In addition to undermining public trust and diverting taxpayer dollars from those who truly need assistance, for this corrections officer, charged with keeping New York’s prisons safe, it is all the more unconscionable. Fraud against public programs will be uncovered and prosecuted.”
