Man receiving workers' comp for blindness caught driving, parking cars at downtown lot

​A Holland man who claimed an eye injury had kept him from working — or driving — has been ordered to pay back nearly $15,000 in benefits he collected from the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation after he was caught on video parking cars and directing traffic at the downtown Toledo parking lot he owns.

Tim Tokles, 60, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft Thursday in Franklin County Court of Common Pleas. In addition to remitting the $14,689 he had collected, he must also serve five years of probation.
The case stretches back to 2012. 
“Mr. Tokles claimed he was permanently disabled from working due to an eye injury he suffered on the job, but our surveillance shows him working and performing multiple tasks that were inconsistent with his injury claim,” Jim Wernecke, director of the special investigation department at the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, said in a statement. 
In a separate fraud case, a 44-year-old Toledo man was ordered to repay the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation $18,501 after investigators found him doing maintenance work at various apartment complexes in the Toledo area while collecting BWC benefits.
Alfred Bowlson pleaded guilty to a fifth-degree felony count of workers’ compensation fraud on Wednesday in Franklin County. He was also sentenced to five years of probation.
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