LOS ANGELES –
“Yellowstone” actor Corianka Kilcher has been charged with illegally collecting nearly $97,000 in disability benefits while working on the TV show, authorities said Monday.
Kilcher, 32, of North Hollywood, was 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 starring Kevin Costner.
She also played Pocahontas in the 2005 film The New World and starred 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 a job but couldn’t take it because of severe neck pain from her injury, according to the insurance department’s statement.
From 2019 to 2021, Kilcher received $96,838 in temporary disability benefits. But a later investigation found that Kilcher worked on Yellowstone for several months in 2019 during the period she claimed to be disabled, the department said.
“According to the records, she returned to the doctor and began receiving disability benefits five days after her last work 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 Kilcher was a passenger in a production vehicle when she was injured.
“Third-party doctors confirmed her injury and entitlement to benefits. Ms. Kilcher has always been upfront with her doctors and treatment providers … and has never knowingly accepted benefits to which she did not believe she was entitled,” Becker said.
Kilcher will “vigorously defend herself and seek the presumption of innocence both inside and outside the courthouse,” Becker said.
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