A former nurse who falsely claimed he was injured on the job at a state prison and later collected tens of thousands of dollars in workers’ compensation benefits is in a Riverside County jail, serving an 18-month term.

Ndiawar Diop, 42, of Riverside was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Timothy Hollenhorst, who also ordered that the defendant spend five years under mandatory supervision once he’s released from the Smith Correctional Facility in Banning.

The judge last week additionally directed Diop to make financial restitution in the amount of $97,164.

A Banning jury in June convicted the defendant of four counts of insurance fraud and one count each of filing a false workers’ comp claim and attempted falsification of an affidavit to commit perjury.

In June 2014, while working as a licensed vocational nurse at the California Institution for Men in Chino, Diop told his superiors that he had inadvertently stuck himself with a needle, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

The defendant soon after reported that an inmate had jabbed him with the needle, but when questioned about the alleged assault, Diop changed his story again, this time telling authorities that the prisoner had attempted to stab him in the neck, and when he reached out to defend himself, he was poked in the hand, prosecutors said.

Evidence and witnesses in Diop’s trial proved his accounts were bogus, according to the D.A.’s office.

Investigators from the agency’s Insurance Fraud Unit worked with officials from the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation to bring the case to trial.

>> Want to read more stories like this? Get our Free Daily Newsletters Here!