Inwood woman indicted for bogus injuries

The Far Rockaway baker got $65,692 in disability payments

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More than two years after Inwood resident and Far Rockaway baker and restaurateur Michelle Buggs was arrested, New York State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott and Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced that Buggs, 48, was indicted Aug. 22 on charges she lied about her past injuries and employment status in order to wrongfully received $65,692 in Workers’ Compensation disability payments, while concealing her ownership of a restaurant.

She was arraigned on the indicted charges in Nassau County court and released on her own recognizance pending her reappearance in court on Sept. 19. The charges are grand larceny second- and third-degree, insurance second- and third-degree, perjury first- degree, the Workers’ Compensation crime of fraudulent practices and 11 counts of falsifying business records-first degree.

An investigation by Leahy Scott and the county DA’s office found that on Oct. 18, 2006, Buggs was employed as a baker/cake decorator for Waldbaum’s supermarket in Glen Head and sustained an injury to her right wrist and fingers. She filed a Workers’ Compensation claim and began receiving wage replacement benefits.


The investigation revealed that Buggs owned and operated a restaurant when  she was receiving the benefits and misrepresented both her ability to work as well as her work status in order to continue to receive benefits to which she was not entitled.

“This defendant’s fabrications and thefts were part of a shameless subterfuge of a critical safety net program enabling her to enrich herself with benefit payments to which she was not entitled,” Leahy Scott said in a prepared news release.

Buggs filed incorporation papers on Au. 29, 2012, with New York state for a restaurant called “It’z All 4U,” officials said. The restaurant was also featured in the local Rockaway newspaper, The Wave, on Jan. 31, 2014.

Eleven months later, Buggs attended an independent medical examination and signed paperwork that stated that she had not worked since the date of the accident and that she remained unable to work. On Feb. 2015, Buggs testified under oath at a State Workers’ Compensation Board hearing that she did not start a company and did not own a business.

Surveillance conducted in February of 2015 found Buggs cooking, working the cash register and serving customers at her restaurant while using both of her hands. She was also allegedly observed packaging food, carrying bags of prepared food for delivery.