"Yellowstone" actor Q'Orianka Kilcher has been charged with illegally collecting nearly $97,000 in disability benefits while working on the TV show, authorities announced Monday.
Kilcher, 32, of North Hollywood, is charged with two felony counts of workers' compensation insurance fraud, according to a statement from the California Department of Insurance.
Kilcher in 2020 played Angela Blue Thunder for four episodes of the Paramount Network Western, which stars Kevin Costner.
She also portrayed Pocahontas in the 2005 movie "The New World" and was in 2019's "Dora and the Lost City of Gold."
While working on "Dora" in October 2018, Kilcher allegedly injured her neck and right shoulder, the insurance department said.
A year later, Kilcher told a doctor handling the insurance claim that she had been offered work but could not take it because of severe neck pain from her injury, according to the insurance department's statement.
From 2019 through 2021, Kilcher received $96,838 in temporary disability benefits. But an investigation later discovered that Kilcher had worked on "Yellowstone" for several months in 2019 during the period she claimed to be disabled, the department said.
"According to records, she returned to the doctor and started receiving disability benefits five days after last working on the show," the statement said.
Kilcher surrendered and was arraigned on the charges in May, the statement said.
In a statement her attorney, Michael Becker, said that Kilcher was a passenger in a production vehicle when she was hurt.
"Third-party doctors verified her injury and entitlement to benefits. Ms. Kilcher was at all times candid with her doctors and treatment providers…and she never intentionally accepted benefits that she did not believe she was entitled to," Becker said.
Kilcher will "vigorously defend herself and asks that she be afforded the presumption of innocence both in and outside the courthouse," Becker said.
Civil rights groups call on major corporations to stick with DEI programs
A broad group of civil rights organizations called on the CEOs and board members of major companies Thursday to maintain their commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that have come under attack online and in lawsuits.
An open letter signed by 19 organizations and directed at the leaders of Fortune 1000 companies said companies that abandon their DEI programs are shirking their fiduciary responsibility to employees, consumers and shareholders.
The civil rights groups included the NAACP, the National Organization for Women, the League of United Latin American Citizens, Asian Americans Advancing Justice and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.
"Diversity, equity and inclusion programs, policies, and practices make business-sense and they're broadly popular among the public, consumers, and employees," their statement read. "But a small, well-funded, and extreme group of right-wing activists is attempting to pressure companies into abandoning their DEI programs."
Companies such as Ford, Lowes, John Deere, Molson Coors and Harley-Davidson recently announced they would pull back on their diversity, equity and inclusion policies after facing pressure from conservative activists who were emboldened by recent victories in the courtroom.
Many major corporations have been examining their diversity programs in the wake of a Supreme Court decision last year that declared race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions unconstitutional. Dozens of cases have been filed making similar arguments about employers. Critics of DEI programs say the initiatives provide benefits to people of one race or sexual orientation while excluding others.
In their letter, the civil rights organizations, which also included... Read More