People v. Bivens CA2/1

Filed 7/29/16 P. v. Bivens CA2/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

THE PEOPLE, B265917

Plaintiff and Appellant, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BA413256) v.

SPARKLE SKY BIVENS,

Defendant and Respondent.

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Michael E. Pastor, Judge. Affirmed. Jackie Lacey, District Attorney, Phyllis C. Asayama and Cassandra Thorp, Deputy District Attorneys, for Plaintiff and Appellant. Ivie, McNeill & Wyatt and Chandler A. Parker for Defendant and Respondent.

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The People appeal from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County ordering defendant and respondent Sparkle Sky Bivens to pay the State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF) $4,000 in restitution. The People argue that the trial court improperly reduced SCIF’s requested $34,154.70 restitution and arbitrarily awarded only $4,000. We disagree and affirm. BACKGROUND In May 2012, an SCIF claims adjuster became suspicious Bivens was submitting fraudulent disability claims after Bivens failed to document attending certain required medical appointments.1 SCIF thereafter approved an investigation by its Special Investigative Unit (SIU) into the legitimacy of Bivens’s claims. The SIU determined it needed to surveil Bivens, but because it has no internal surveilling resources, it hired Paul Chance Investigations (Chance), a third party investigator, to surveil Bivens and obtain evidence she was engaging in activities she claimed she could not perform. Chance deployed a team of four investigators to surveil and videotape Bivens’s activities over several days. SCIF testified that although normally investigations require only one investigator, occasionally circumstances warrant a team of investigators. According to SCIF, Chance recommended it surveil Bivens with a team, rather than an individual investigator, because Bivens lived in a crowded area of Los Angeles, heavy with traffic, and Bivens was a fast driver, conditions which would make Bivens a difficult target to follow. Chance’s investigators eventually caught Bivens on film engaging in activities she alleged she could not do. SCIF submitted the film to a doctor who determined Bivens’s disability claims were unjustified. SCIF consequently terminated Bivens’s disability payments. After SCIF terminated Bivens’s disability payments, Bivens’s attorney requested SCIF reinstate her disability payments. SCIF spent at least an additional $11,000 looking