California judge to plead guilty in massive workers’ comp fraud scheme

This time he won’t be the one banging the gavel.

A California judge used a sham company to scam the state out of thousands of dollars using fraudulent workers comp payments and a doctor banned from the program, prosecutors said Wednesday.

A corrupt judge and former prosecutor who put away murders and carjackers, is now facing his own time behind bars after he agreed to plead guilty in an alleged scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Golden State, according to the DOJ.

Orange County Superior Court judge Israel Claustro, 50, agreed to resign and plead guilty to a federal mail fraud charge — which could land him behind bars for up to 20 years, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.

The scam started when Claustro — who was then a prosecutor — opened medical company Liberty Medical Group even though he wasn’t a physician or a medical professional as required under state law, prosecutors said..  

He then hired a disgraced doctor, Kevin Tien Do who had lost his license after being convicted in 2003 of felony health care fraud for $300,000, the US Attorney said.

The two conspired together to prepare false reports for California’s Subsequent Injuries Benefits Trust Fund (SIBTF), a special fund administered to provide additional compensation to injured workers. 

Based on these fraudulent submitted reports, Liberty received hundreds of thousands of dollars from SIBTF, the attorney said.

“Judge Claustro violated the law for his personal financial benefit,” said First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli. “We will not hesitate to prosecute anyone – judges included – who defraud public benefits intended to help those in need.”

Claustro was a prosecutor in Orange County for nearly 20 years, supervising serious, high-profile cases involving murder, sexual battery, child abuse and political corruption, according to the Asian Times.

“I believe that serving as a judge requires humility, an open mind, independence, and commitment to the highest ethical standards of the law,” he told the publication when he was running for judge in 2022.

Do has already pleaded guilty in January 2025 to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and one count of subscribing to a false tax return. He is expected to be sentenced in the coming months.

Claustro will make his initial court appearance on Jan.12.