Woman guilty in injury fraud case

Bill Gang

Wednesday, April 21, 1999 | 11 a.m.

A Las Vegas woman's greed had won her nearly $2 million through a lawsuit for back injuries she swore she suffered in a work-related accident.

Now she has lost it all and has a criminal record.

In addition to the lawsuit settlement, Jamie Lynn Kemp, 38, had been awarded $1.3 million in state disability funds to provide her with income and medical treatment for the rest of her life, Deputy Attorney General Janalee Murray said.

But the back injuries in February 1991 that required her to undergo surgery and several hospitalizations had occurred at her home when a child's chair collapsed while she was sitting on it with her daughter in her lap.

Kemp claimed that the injury occurred in the office of the cabinet-making shop she ran when a wheel on her chair slipped into an uncovered drain and she fell on her back.

The truth surfaced during a bitter divorce in 1996 when her estranged husband, Ken Kemp, revealed the scam to authorities. Murray said county juvenile workers confirmed it through the couple's children.

Jamie Kemp was indicted on six counts of insurance fraud and theft in 1997 in what the attorney general's office said was the largest case of insurance and worker's compensation fraud in the history of the state.

On Tuesday she pleaded guilty to a gross misdemeanor charge of conspiracy to commit a prohibited act and was sentenced to the few days of jail time she already had served in the Clark County Detention Center.

Murray said the plea bargain also required her to sign agreements to repay the nearly $2 million to two insurance companies that had settled her products liability lawsuit. She also stipulated that the debt can't be written off in a bankruptcy action.

The prosecutor said that half of that money went to her lawyer to pay for litigation costs and attorney fees.

Las Vegas attorney Craig Delk, representing California Casualty Company which paid Kemp $425,000, said he has no plans to pursue the attorney fees but has yet to talk over the issue with his client in light of Kemp's guilty plea. Another $1.5 million was paid by Fireman's Fund Insurance which also insured Kemp's building owner, the Ribeiro Corp.

In addition to the agreement to repay the lawsuit settlement, Kemp consented to forfeit the state disability fund that was paying her at least $1,400 per month and was going to take care of her medical needs for the rest of her life.