Ice Bucket Video Could Get Cop 6 Years in Jail

Jaime Robison was on disability when she lifted 5-gallon pail
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted May 5, 2015 9:28 AM CDT
Ice Bucket Video Could Get Cop 6 Years in Jail
A bucket for an Ice Bucket Challenge is shown.   (AP Photo/The Chronicle-Tribune, Jeff Morehead)

Like countless others, Jaime Robison found herself playing a part in last summer's Ice Bucket Challenge craze to raise money for ALS. In a video uploaded in July, the California police officer was filmed lifting a 5-gallon pail of ice water and dousing a fellow cop, the Los Angeles Times reports. Some nine months later, Robison, 39, is feeling the heat. The Pasadena Police Department officer was actually on disability for a lower back injury at the time of the video—and her ease with the bucket raised the suspicions of investigators, who have since charged her with four counts of insurance fraud.

Not only do investigators believe Robison exaggerated her injuries to collect disability benefits from May 31 to August 21, they say that was perhaps the officer's second offense, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reports. Prosecutors allege she also inflated an injury in 2012, which allowed her to collect disability pay for more than a year. She collected an estimated $117,000 over the two periods in question. Robison, who has been on administrative leave since September, pleaded not guilty to the charges on Friday; she faces as many as six years and four months in county jail if convicted. She'll return to court June 10. (Here are 10 Ice Bucket Challenge fails.)

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