Former Coulee City police chief turned pinup model faces fraud charges

OLYMPIA — A former Coulee City police chief who had claimed disability payments ever since a large corpse fell on her in 2012 has been charged with workers’ compensation fraud, after a state investigation found she had spent five years working and volunteering as a pinup model.

Brenda Lynn Cavoretto, 47, is facing two counts of making a false or misleading statement to a public servant, a gross misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of just under a year in jail and/or a $5,000 fine. If convicted or she pleads guilty, Cavoretto would be expected to repay the $67,420.23 she collected in workers’ compensation, according to a representative of the Washington Department of Labor and Industries.

Then police chief of Coulee City, Cavoretto was hurt in February 2012 while responding to reports of a man who had committed suicide. Cavoretto discovered that a suspect in a domestic violence case had hanged himself, and as she tried to take down the body, the 285-pound corpse fell on top of her. She suffered back, shoulder and abdominal injuries, and later told state officials that the psychological trauma made it impossible to work or be around other people, according to a statement from L&I.

After the incident, she took a job as an officer with the Soap Lake Police Department until May 2013, when she began receiving L&I wage-replacement payments and vocational services, claiming lingering effects from the falling corpse incident, according to a statement by L&I.

Two years after she left the Soap Lake Police Department, Cavoretto began seeing a psychologist, who determined she was suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. According to charging papers filed by L&I, which was overseeing Cavoretto’s treatment, Cavoretto told her psychologist that she was having nightmares and was unable to leave the house.

Cavoretto appeared to be making little progress after four years of mental health treatment, according to her L&I case manager, which led the case manager in 2019 to request that Cavoretto be investigated, according to an L&I representative.

The investigation found that Cavoretto had been working and volunteering since 2015 in the pinup model scene, both as a photographer and event organizer and as a model herself working under the stage names Tuff As Nailz and The Black Widow Bettie, according to L&I.

Other activities were through her husband’s publication, Electric Pinup Magazine, and her nonprofit group, Electric Pinup Dolls, which raised money for veterans, firefighters, and law enforcement, according to L&I. Officials with the state agency could not answer how much Cavoretto had made, but said that she had defrauded the agency simply by working while claiming disability.

Now the Snohomish County woman — Cavoretto is currently a resident of Gold Bar — is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Thurston County District Court in Olympia. The Washington Attorney General’s Office is prosecuting the case, according to a press release.

“Injured workers are required to tell us about all of their work and volunteer activities,” said Chris Bowe, assistant director for L&I’s Fraud Prevention and Labor Standards division. “People who don’t tell the truth can be ordered to pay back their benefits and, in the worst cases, face criminal prosecution.”

Cavoretto did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Emry Dinman can be reached via email at edinman@columbiabasinherald.com.