Man behind dancing Kia hamster charged with insurance fraud
YouTube/VIPArmy
At the same time he was busting a move as one of the dancing hamsters in those bizarre Kia commercials, officials say 27-year-old Leroy Barnes was collecting disability insurance checks for thousands of dollars.
ABC7 Los Angeles reports that in June 2010, Barnes said he was hit by a piece of ceiling during a sound check. He began to collect disability and workers' compensation checks, earning more than $51,000 between September 2010 and September 2011. When Barnes wasn't portraying a hamster with sweet moves, he worked under various aliases as a backup dancer for Madonna, Chris Brown, and Kelly Rowland.
Byron Tucker with the California Department of Insurance knows that case sounds strange, but isn’t laughing. "This is actually a serious crime and is not funny," he said. "This type of fraud hurts everybody. Workers' compensation fraud in the state of California costs the system almost $400 million a year."
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Barnes is expected in court on July 2. He could face six years in prison and $75,000 in fines if found guilty. In case you somehow blocked 2011 from your mind completely, watch one of the dancing hamster commercials below. --Catherine Garcia
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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