American Greed, A&O Life Style, Results in Lengthy Prison Sentences
On Friday the hammer fell for five men who pleaded guilty in the A&O Life life insurance fraud scheme. Here is a good A.P. article on the sentencing as printed in the Houston Chronicle. The article describes the scam:
The sentences were:
- Brent Oncale (the 'O' in A&O): 10 years;
- David White (former banker and A&O president): 5 years;
- Eric Kurz (middleman who fed info. to salesmen): 5 years;
- Russell Mackert (A&O lawyer and front-man): 15 years, 8 months;
- Tomme Bromseth (life insurance agent and A&O salesman): 3 years.
Mackert asked for a shorter sentence based on his being stupid:
These sentences put a smile on my face. Life insurance agents, in particular, should heed Mr. Bromseth's sentence. The take-home is that when you put your clients into a scam, you will be held criminally responsible.
Investors should note that they cannot automatically trust their life insurance agents—particularly when it comes to selling investment products. Many of the victims of the A&O scheme invested because they were buying from their long-time life insurance agent who they trusted. The agents, who earned large commissions from the sales, later claimed ignorance as a defense to the scheme.
This is not the first investment scheme fueled by sales made by life insurance agents. Personally, I would not buy anything except insurance from an insurance agent. They may try to become your investment advisor and put you into mutual funds and other investments. I'd say no. Why?
It's sort of like the adage of don't order steak at a fish house or fish at a steak house. Insurance and investing are different.
Thank you for your continuing coverage of this case. The updates on this blog have been a great help in understanding what and how everything has transpired in this case. These sentencings are progress, and more ammunition for the inevitable investment fraud court cases that surely will follow as all the contracts are breached, one by one.
Mr Mackert, our attorney in a lawsuite against a builder filed in 2006. Quite a shock to learn on Aug 10, 2011 that instead of actively pursuing the incompetant and dishonest builder, he was bilking investors. We are left to pick up the ruins of our case which was winable in 2009. Now it is a complete loss and we are left with a house that is so badly built the tax appraiser rated it as only 50% complete. The investors in this scheme are not the only ones left in devastation.
Mr. Edwards, you need to contact the State Bar of Texas in Austin, Texas, to see about filing a complaint against Mackert, if he didn't pursue the case like he should have according to the legal community's rules. I would guess that Mackert had been busy with the A&O indictment against him since before Sept. 2010 when it was filed. You might also contact another attorney to see if a legal malpractice suit is appropriate in this circumstance. Don't know if Mackert had any insurance coverage for this sort of thing or not, but he might have.