Los Angeles: “Yellowstone” actress Ky Orionka Kilcher has been charged with illegally receiving nearly $97,000 in disability benefits while working on a TV show. The officials announced this on Monday.
Kilcher, 32, of North Hollywood has been charged with two serious charges of workers’ compensation insurance fraud, according to a statement from the California Department of Insurance.
In 2020 Kilcher played Angela Blue Thunder for four episodes of the Paramount Network Western, starring Kevin Costner.
She also portrayed Pocahontas in the 2005 film “The New World” and was in 2019’s “Dora and the Lost City of Gold”.
The insurance department said that Kilcher had allegedly injured his neck and right shoulder while working in ‘Dora’ in October 2018.
A year later, Kilcher told a doctor handling the insurance claim that she was offered the job, but could not take it because of severe neck pain from her injury, according to a Department of Insurance statement.
From 2019 to 2021, Kilcher received $96,838 in temporary disability benefits. But an investigation later revealed that Kilcher had worked at “Yellowstone” for several months in 2019, during which period he claimed to be disabled, the department said.
“As per the records, she returned to the doctor and began receiving disability benefits five days after she last worked on the show,” the statement said.
Kilcher surrendered and was indicted on the charges in May, the statement said.
In a statement her attorney, Michael Baker, said that Kilcher was a passenger in a production vehicle when she was hurt.
“Third-party doctors confirmed his injury and eligibility for benefits. Ms. Kilcher was always frank with her doctors and treatment providers … and she never intentionally accepted benefits she didn’t believe she was entitled to,” Baker said
. and asks that he be presumed of innocence both inside and outside the court.”
