Some Actors Must Always Be On

We may strut and fret our hour upon the stage, but there are those who must act continuously. Every minute of every day, they are on stage, doing their act. To fall out of character is to fall into the arms of the police.

Forgot his lines

Someone like Juventino Guzman should have remembered to play his role, but instead he forgot the cardinal rule of insurance fraud. Never let the mask slip. Never let them see you sweat...or not sweat, depending on what injury you've claimed to have suffered.

Mr. Guzman made his way in the world by pretending to slip and fall, then suing the business where said "injury" occurred. Insurance companies settled with him and he got a nice, big check. Upwards of $250,000, which is more than enough for a person to live on comfortably for a few years. He slipped and fell at least three times during his career. About two times too many, but greed does lead us all into temptation.

When the same person suffers the same injury more than once, insurance claims specialists take note, especially if those injuries tend to be bunched together in a short period of time. It's gotten easier to track such things, what with computers and searches that can yield a list of claims paid out to one particular individual. Insurance companies don't like paying out on claims because they don't care for added expenses, and they just love to catch someone pulling a fast one.

The industry has folks that go out and watch the so-called disabled, watch their every move and document any time that the actor falls out character and does something they claimed they couldn't do.

Through such detective work was Mr. Guzman caught. He thought no one was looking, but they were, and it was a simple matter of the insurance company bringing their evidence to the local police who then arrested the man for fraud. It's a form of stealing, you see, and when you've accepted several hundreds of thousands of dollars, it becomes grand larceny and that is a felony.

If Mr. Guzman fails to return all the money, he'll go to jail. What are the odds that he has it all tucked into a bank account somewhere?

While he makes his monthly payments, he'll be on probation, so he'll want to be extra careful around patches of ice or wet floors. He'll want to invest in some non-slip shoes, so no judge can ever accuse him of trying to pull the same scam while he's serving his sentence for a previous conviction.

He strutted his hour on the stage, but he had to strut twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It's not an easy job, to act non-stop. It takes focus and concentration or an ability to live like a hermit behind closed blinds so no one can see you move around with ease when you're supposed to be laid up and incapacitated.