OXNARD : Doctor’s Suit Over Funds Goes to Trial

A jury began hearing evidence Wednesday that a mother and daughter from Camarillo embezzled more than $100,000 from the Oxnard doctor they worked for until their dismissal in 1987.

In a lawsuit filed in Ventura County Superior Court, Dr. Louis Barbara accused former employees Shirley Jenkins and her daughter, Barbara, of using their positions as office workers to embezzle cash receipts, file false time cards and run up credit card charges for their personal benefit.

In an opening statement Wednesday, Dr. Barbara’s attorney, David Patrick Callahan, said Shirley Jenkins began skimming cash receipts as she went through a divorce in 1980 and continued the practice afterward. In 1985, Barbara Jenkins joined the staff and soon was turning in falsified time cards, the attorney said.

The Jenkinses put much of the cash into their personal bank accounts, he said. “The incomes going into their bank accounts were not supported by their paychecks,” Callahan said.

The discrepancies came to light, he said, when Dr. Barbara discovered that he had been paying for an unauthorized American Express card used by Shirley Jenkins.

In his opening statement, the Jenkinses’ attorney, Bennett Rolfe, said it was the physician, not his employees, who was responsible for the accounting, which Rolfe said made it easy for anyone in the office, including Dr. Barbara, to pocket cash. “Why didn’t he institute stronger controls?” Rolfe asked. “Because Dr. Barbara himself was taking the money.”

He said the physician built a lucrative practice “on my clients’ back” and fired them only to make room for his wife on the office payroll.

Afterward, Rolfe acknowledged that Shirley Jenkins has pleaded guilty to forging office checks amounting to $1,200 after her dismissal and filing a false income tax return in which she did not report income from the checks. He said the physician owed her the money. She has not been sentenced.

Callahan said Dr. Barbara is asking for $107,000 in actual losses plus $535,000 in punitive damages.

In a countersuit, the Jenkinses are seeking unspecified damages for overtime that they say was unpaid and damages for wrongful termination.