By Gary V. Murray Telegram & Gazette Staff

Employers, their insurers and their defense counsel lie through their teeth at Workers' Compensation Hearings and trials all the time. Here's one judge in Massachusetts who was very creative at sentencing one employer who got caught altering documents that he presented to the court.

WORCESTER— As part of his punishment for committing perjury, a Westminster man was ordered yesterday to read Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter's book "Integrity" and to write a 1,000-word essay reflecting on the author's message and the lessons he has learned from his criminal conduct.

Alan J. Koren, the former owner of a pallet company in Gardner, was found guilty of perjury earlier this month for lying under oath during a 2002 state Department of Industrial Accidents hearing on a compensation claim filed by an injured employee. A Worcester Superior Court jury convicted the 43-year-old Mr. Koren of one count of perjury March 8 and found him not guilty on two additional counts.

Judge Francis R. Fecteau sentenced Mr. Koren yesterday to 2-1/2 years in the House of Correction, but suspended the sentence for three years with probation. The reading and writing assignment was one of several conditions of probation ordered by the judge. Another will require Mr. Koren to speak publicly about his case to students or business people on three occasions over the next three years.

The charges against Mr. Koren stemmed from his testimony at a hearing on a Workers' Compensation claim brought by Carlos Galvan, a worker at the now-defunct Wood Technology. Mr. Galvan was injured when a nail fired from a nail gun ricocheted and struck him in the eye.

Prosecutors charged that Mr. Koren, of 1 Shady Lane, Westminster, lied under oath at the compensation hearing when he testified that safety glasses were made available to workers at his company before Mr. Galvan's July 15, 1998, accident, that related safety warnings were in place and that he never saw, touched or altered a particular invoice from a safety products maker.

Assistant Attorney General Kajal K. Chattopadhyay alleged that Mr. Koren altered the invoice from Direct Safety of Milwaukee to make it appear he had bought safety products from the company before Mr. Galvan's accident. Mr. Galvan lost sight in one eye from the injury.

Prosecutors also alleged that Mr. Koren visited Mr. Galvan in the hospital and suggested he tell hospital personnel he was wearing safety glasses at the time of the accident. Mr. Koren, who denied the charges, allegedly expressed concern that his company might otherwise be cited for federal safety violations and that his insurance premiums would skyrocket.

Mr. Koren's lawyer, Peter L. Ettenberg, maintained during the perjury trial that protective eyewear purchased at a local hardware store was provided to Wood Technology employees before Mr. Galvan's accident, that safety warnings had been posted on the premises and that his client did not alter the invoice in question. Mr. Ettenberg said Mr. Koren acknowledged during his testimony at the compensation hearing that he did not buy safety goggles from Direct Safety until after the accident.

Mr. Chattopadhyay recommended that Mr. Koren be sentenced to 2-1/2 years in the House of Correction with 18 months to be served. He proposed that the balance of the sentence be suspended for three years with probation and that Mr. Koren be fined $1,000 and ordered to perform 250 hours of community service.

He said the sentence would "send a strong message" that perjury will not be tolerated by the courts.

Mr. Ettenberg proposed a $1,000 fine for Mr. Koren. He said a question posed by the jurors before they returned their verdicts suggested they believed his client saw the invoice from Direct Safety, but did not alter it.

Mr. Ettenberg described Mr. Koren, who is married and has two children, as "an unbelievably hard-working individual, very committed to his community, very committed to his family." He said the charge for which Mr. Koren was found guilty was "the least significant" of the three indictments against him.

While agreeing with the prosecutor that the crime of perjury "strikes right at the heart of the integrity of the adversary process," Judge Fecteau said he did not believe incarceration was called for in Mr. Koren's case.

The judge noted that Mr. Koren had been subjected to "public humiliation" as a result of publicity surrounding his case and that he had been forced to pay Mr. Galvan "from his own funds" in connection with his injury.

"I have no doubt that he tried to cheat and then tried to lie to cover it up," he said of Mr. Koren's actions.

As conditions of probation, Judge Fecteau gave Mr. Koren 90 days to read "Integrity," which, according to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, deals with "the current state of public integrity and its philosophical underpinnings." The judge gave Mr. Koren another 60 days to write the essay "on his conduct in this case, the lessons he's learned, the lessons he's learned from the book, and why he thinks I ordered him to read it."

The judge said he would make Mr. Koren write the essay over if he did not find it satisfactory.

Mr. Koren also was ordered to arrange three speaking engagements before high school or college students or business organizations in northern Worcester County. During the talks, the judge ordered, Mr. Koren will have to "admit that he tried to cheat his way out of responsibility for this accident that happened. He will admit that he tried to lie to cover it up, that he was wrong in doing so, and why. And he may use this essay as the beginning or the basis of that speech."

Another term of probation will require Mr. Koren to perform 10 hours of community service a month.

"I want the lessons of this case to be indelibly learned and wired into Mr. Koren’s mind," Judge Fecteau said.