N.C. insurance mogul charged with scheme to skim ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’

A 13-count grand jury indictment in Charlotte was filed Thursday from Greg E. Lindberg of Durham, whom federal prosecutors allege has defrauded countless numbers of policyholders, news shops claimed.

“The indictment reveals a thoroughly orchestrated scheme that relied on a world-wide-web of complex economic investments and transactions created to evade regulators, disguise the economic health and fitness of Lindberg’s insurance plan corporations, and conceal the alleged intent of the scheme: Lindberg’s personalized attain,” western North Carolina U.S. Lawyer Dena King claimed immediately after the indictment was made general public Friday.

The counts involve wire fraud, conspiracy, money-laundering conspiracy, creating fake insurance plan organization statements to regulators and making fake entries about insurance small business finances.

Lindberg, 53, already is struggling with in the fall a retrial on federal prices accusing him of trying to bribe North Carolina’s insurance policy commissioner to protected preferential regulatory treatment for his insurance policies small business. Before the 2019 indictment on these costs, Lindberg had specified tens of millions of dollars to North Carolina candidate and social gathering committees and unbiased expenditure groups.

An appeals courtroom previous June overturned all those 2020 corruption-linked convictions, and soon following he was unveiled from an Alabama jail where he experienced been serving a seven-yr sentence. With the most up-to-date indictment, an arrest warrant was issued Thursday for Lindberg.

A Lindberg spokesperson referred to as the latest rates “piling on” by the govt due to the fact it has a weak case versus Lindberg at retrial. An appeals court panel ruled the trial choose erred by offering jurors in Lindberg’s demo deceptive recommendations prior to they began deliberations.

In accordance to prosecutors and the latest indictment, Lindberg and some others agreed from no afterwards than 2016 by means of at minimum 2019 to defraud insurance providers, other 3rd get-togethers and policyholders. In 2017-18 Lindberg and his co-conspirators employed financial loans and connected transactions to skim “hundreds of hundreds of thousands of dollars” from his insurance policies firms to buy and work other Lindberg firms, the indictment alleges.

Lindberg deceived the condition Insurance coverage Section and other regulators and improperly employed insurance policies corporation resources for his individual advantage, the federal government alleges. Lindberg allegedly individually benefited by employing corporation resources to finance “his lavish lifestyle” by true estate buys and forgiving about $125 million in loans from his affiliated firms to himself, in accordance to a U.S. Justice Section launch.

Lindberg spokesperson Susan Estrich said the “the most up-to-date prices stem from the government’s paying above 5 a long time going as a result of in excess of 7 million files on basically thousands of complicated economical transactions involving more than 900 businesses and handpicking alleged specialized violations which have not caused any reduction to policyholders in North Carolina or any other condition for that subject.”

Estrich also offered a statement from Lindberg, who said: “I invested about $500 million in my insurance coverage organizations. I under no circumstances took a penny of dividends. The allegation that I in some way defrauded them while investing $500 million in them and getting no dividends is totally absurd.”

Very last August, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil criticism against Lindberg, an affiliate and their expense advisory firm of defrauding clients out of above $75 million by means of complicated strategies involving undisclosed transactions.

And in December, that associate – identified as Christopher Herwig – pleaded guilty in Charlotte federal courts to conspiracy to defraud the United States linked to a plan to transfer dollars concerning insurance providers and other organizations Lindberg owned.

Herwig is identified as one particular of the two co-conspirators in this week’s indictment of Lindberg. The other alleged co-conspirator — identified as Devin Solow — had been formally accused by federal prosecutors of conspiracy in a invoice of data unsealed previous thirty day period. But Solow’s legal professional and King’s business also wrote that the govt and Solow experienced entered a deferred prosecution arrangement whereby the invoice would be dismissed in five a long time if Solow complies with the arrangement, which consists of promising to cooperate with prosecutors.

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