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Published September 6, 2001 - Chicago Tribune

Lawyer/Adjuster in worker comp case given 4-year prison sentence

An attorney at the center of a long-running kickback scheme was sentenced Wednesday to 4 years in prison for mail fraud. Richard Hendershot, 49, of River Forest was convicted by a federal jury in March 2000 of sharing in more than $230,000 in kickbacks in return for steering hundreds of surveillance jobs to six Chicago-area private investigation firms from late 1988 to mid-1994.

As a claims adjuster for an insurance company now part of Aon Corp., Hendershot hired private investigators to determine the veracity of claims by injured workers, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. Morris Pasqual. At the time of his conviction, Hendershot was an arbitrator for the Illinois Industrial Commission. In sentencing Hendershot, U.S. District Judge RebeccaPallmeyer ordered him to pay restitution for the $233,720 in kickbacks and recommended he receive alcohol treatment while in prison. Co-defendant James Battista of Chicago, a Republican committeeman who was convicted of acting as Hendershot's "bagman" in the scheme, is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 19.