RIVERSIDE – A former vocational nurse working at the California Institution for Men in Chino has been sentenced in a workers’ compensation fraud case in which he falsely claimed an inmate attacked him with a needle.

Ndiawar Diop, DOB: 7-15-77, was convicted by a Riverside County jury in June of six felonies – one count each of making a false workers’ compensation claim and attempted perjury as well as four counts of making a false statement in order to receive an insurance benefit.

On Sept. 13, 2019, Diop was sentenced by a Riverside County judge to six years, six months in county jail, five years of which are on mandatory supervision.  

The judge also ordered Diop to pay restitution in the amount of $97,164.

In June 2013, Diop, who worked as a vocational nurse for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, reported that he accidentally poked himself with a needle while at work. However, over time, Diop’s description of what happened changed.

Diop later said he thought it was an intentional act by the inmate to stick him with the needle and, on a later date, changed his story to say it happened when the inmate tried to stab in him the neck with the needle, resulting in the injury to his hand as he tried to shield himself from the attack. However, that statement was proven false by the evidence presented at the trial.

The case, RIF1705 383, was prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Blaine Hopp of the DA’s Insurance Fraud Team and was investigated by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.