The previous year, Arias had been mowing the median of Highway 59 just over the Alabama line when his riding lawnmower hit a hole, throwing him into the air. He slammed back in his seat, landing hard on his lower back.
Arias received pain medication, physical therapy and steroid injections through his employer's workers' compensation insurance. But the pain in his back made even walking or sitting a struggle. So his doctor recommended an expensive surgery to implant a device that sends electrical pulses to the spinal cord to relieve chronic pain. Six days after that appointment, the insurance company suddenly discovered that Arias had been using a deceased man's Social Security number and rejected not only the surgery but all of his past and future care.
Desperate, Arias hired an attorney to help him pursue the injury benefits that Florida law says all employees, including unauthorized immigrants, are entitled to receive. Then one morning after he dropped off two of his boys at school, Arias was pulled over and arrested, while his toddler watched from his car seat.
Arias was charged with using a false Social Security number to get a job and to file for workers' comp. The state insurance fraud unit had been tipped off by a private investigator hired by his employer's insurance company.