Employee lies about coronavirus to get 2 weeks off, SC cops say. His company shut down
A South Carolina company was forced to shut down after an employee claimed to have the coronavirus, according to the sheriff’s office.
It was a lie.
The Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office arrested 31-year-old Jeffery Long on Thursday and charged him with breaching the peace and forgery, arrest records show.
“Seems to me like the fellow just wanted a two-week paid vacation,” Sheriff Chuck Wright said, according to WSPA.
Long — who worked at Sitel Corp. in Spartanburg — submitted a fake doctor’s note with a forged signature saying he had tested positive for the coronavirus on March 13 and could not return to work until March 27, WSPA reported.
Sitel shut down immediately to deep clean its facilities and did not reopen until Wednesday, the company said in a statement online.
“Our priority during this time was to ensure the ongoing health and safety of our people, and on safely restoring operations as quickly as possible so as to limit the impact on our clients and their customers,” Sitel said.
But when investigators took a closer look at the letter, they realized it wasn’t written on official letter head, the Spartanburg-Herald Journal reported.
Long’s doctor confirmed he did not have COVID-19, according to the newspaper.
Long was arrested Thursday around 5:40 p.m., according to the sheriff’s office.
He is no longer employed at Sitel, the company told WSPA in a statement. All employees returned to work at the facility on March 18.
“Sitel Group is disappointed to learn that any member of the Sitel family would heighten anxiety and risk public safety by making a false claim in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the company said on its website. “Trust is one of Sitel Group’s four core values and we will not tolerate any action which undermines the trust our people, our local communities, our clients and their customers place in us.”
