LOS ANGELES >> A Southern California police officer was caught partying at the Stagecoach Music Festival while collecting more than $600,000 in workers’ compensation for a head injury that prosecutors allege was faked.

Westminster officer Nicole Brown, 39, was charged Monday with 15 felonies of workers’ compensation and insurance fraud, the Orange County District Attorney’s office said. She faces up to 22 years in prison if convicted.

Brown was on the job March 21, 2022, when she received a “minor abrasion” to her forehead while trying to arrest an uncooperative suspect, according to prosecutors. She told her watch commander that she had a headache and was feeling dizzy.

Though an emergency room doctor who examined her that day released her back to work without restrictions, she called out sick for several days and was diagnosed with a severe concussion about a week after the initial injury. She was placed on Total Temporary Disability, which made her eligible to receive her full salary for up to a year and two-thirds of her salary after that.

Later, investigators would find out that during the three days she called out sick after her injury, Brown went to several soccer conferences in San Diego. In the following year while collecting disability, she also ran in two 5K races, went snowboarding or skiing in Big Bear and Mammoth, attended baseball games, played golf, went to Disneyland and took online courses with a local university, prosecutors allege.