California cop was partying at festival while collecting $600,000 for fake injury, officials say

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Southern California police officer was caught partying at the Stagecoach Music Festival while collecting more than $600,000 in workers’ compensation for a head injury that prosecutors allege was faked.

Westminster officer Nicole Brown, 39, was charged Monday with 15 felonies of workers’ compensation and insurance fraud, the Orange County District Attorney’s office said. She faces up to 22 years in prison if convicted.

Brown was on the job March 21, 2022, when she received a “minor abrasion” to her forehead while trying to arrest an uncooperative suspect, according to prosecutors. She told her watch commander that she had a headache and was feeling dizzy.

Though an emergency room doctor who examined her that day released her back to work without restrictions, she called out sick for several days and was diagnosed with a severe concussion about a week after the initial injury. She was placed on Total Temporary Disability, which made her eligible to receive her full salary for up to a year and two-thirds of her salary after that.

Later, investigators would find out that during the three days she called out sick after her injury, Brown went to several soccer conferences in San Diego. In the following year while collecting disability, she also ran in two 5K races, went snowboarding or skiing in Big Bear and Mammoth, attended baseball games, played golf, went to Disneyland and took online courses with a local university, prosecutors allege.

“Mrs. Brown suffered a significant head injury when she was on duty,” her attorney Brian Gurwitz said, “and she intends to vigorously fight these allegations.”

According to prosecutors, some of Brown’s ongoing symptoms that she reported during this time were: headaches, dizziness, sensitivity to light and noise, and inability to look at a screen.

The district attorney’s office began their investigation into potential fraud after she was seen by several people “dancing and drinking” in April 2023 at the Stagecoach Music Festival, an annual country music festival held in the Coachella Valley with “loud music and bright lights everywhere.” This was reported to the Westminster Police Department.

Three days after the festival, Brown and her stepfather attended a Zoom meeting where she sat in a dark room and said she was unable to look at the screen. Her stepfather said she still could not do paperwork or take phone calls. After the meeting, she was admitted to an inpatient center for traumatic brain injury.

Prosecutors say Brown collected more than $600,000 from the city of Westminster, which includes her full salary and medical expenses.

Her stepfather Peter Schuman, 57, of Buena Park, has also been charged with two felonies related to insurance fraud and helping commit a crime. He is a licensed attorney in California and faces discipline from the state bar, prosecutors said. Schuman does not have an attorney listed and could not be reached for comment.

Brown was sworn into the Westminster Police Department in February 2019, according to Behind the Badge, a publication reporting on law enforcement news in California.