Crime Watch

Ex-fire commish avoids jail for $337,000 disability fraud

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Robert Ellensohn’s decision to pretend that he had become disabled working for the Long Island Rail Road and retire on a disability pension was an “aberrant” mistake in the life of an otherwise exemplary man, Ellensohn’s lawyer, David Jacobs, told a federal judge last Friday as the judge prepared to sentence Ellensohn for multiple felonies.

This so-called aberration continued on a monthly basis for nine years. Between 2004 and 2013, Ellensohn received about $3,000 per month in fraudulently obtained disability payments from the federal Railroad Retirement Board, totaling $337,000 in all.

Ellensohn, 60, a retired LIRR bridges and buildings inspector who North Merrick voters elected to the North Merrick Fire Department’s Board of Commissioners in 2010 and served as the board’s chairman, the highest-ranking position in the department, is one of hundreds of ex-LIRR workers believed to have retired on phony disabilities, bilking the government out of hundreds of millions of dollars in disability benefits. About 79 percent of workers who retired from the LIRR between 1998 and 2011 received federal disability benefits, according to the office of Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Last July, Ellensohn pleaded guilty to wire fraud; conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud and health care fraud; and conspiracy to defraud the United States and the Railroad Retirement Board.

“I filled out paperwork falsely about injuries and being disabled,” he told the court. “And I collected benefits.”

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