Hoffman v. Superior Court
Annotate this CaseIn May 2011, defendant Sim Hoffman was indicted on 884 felony counts alleging healthcare insurance fraud. That indictment was ultimately dismissed in 2013 on the ground that the prosecution had failed to provide exculpatory evidence to the grand jury. Rather than proceed by indictment, in January 2014, the State filed a felony complaint. The complaint alleged 159 counts of insurance fraud. The issue in this writ proceeding was whether an information could allege a single offense in a single count, but describe within that count multiple discrete acts, each of which constitute the charged offense. Each count in the State’s complaint identified multiple patient files and a timeframe that spannedyears. Defendant demurred to the information. The court overruled the demurrer and defendant then filed this writ petition. The Court of Appeal concluded the information was proper, and denied the writ petition. “Each count alleges a single offense. Any complications, or undue prejudice to defendant, arising from the fact that multiple discrete acts may constitute the charged offense in each count are adequately dealt with by a unanimity instruction at trial, or by other tools at the court’s disposal, such as a severance of counts, or trial continuances where appropriate. A demurrer on these grounds is not the proper vehicle to address defendant’s concerns.”
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