Former executive in $800 million insurance scam gets 20 years in prison
September 3, 2014 by IFAwebnews Staff
The man who masterminded an $800 million insurance scam that fleeced tens of thousands of investors in one of Florida’s all-time largest fraud schemes was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison.
U.S. District Judge Robert Scola gave Joel Steinger, 64, credit for pleading guilty to avoid a lengthy and costly trial and said Steinger’s multiple medical problems — he appeared in court in a wheelchair, with an oxygen tank — argued against the maximum 50-year sentence sought by prosecutors.
But Scola said Steinger still deserved a lengthy prison term because, as chief executive of now-defunct Mutual Benefits Corp., he orchestrated a fraud scheme that victimized more than 30,000 investors in all 50 states and numerous foreign countries between 1994 and 2004.
The company, first investigated in 2003 by the state Office of Insurance Regulation, bought life insurance policies from people with AIDS, cancer and other chronic illnesses and sold them to investors. The policyholder would get paid an upfront, discounted amount and the investor was promised a larger insurance payout when the person died.
The company promised safety and sky-high returns. But Steinger and others involved in the scam admitted that life expectancy numbers were cooked, the company’s financial strength was falsified and eventually older investors were being paid with money from newer ones in classic Ponzi scheme fashion. Mutual Benefits was shut down by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004.
