Former Anaheim insurance agent gets 15 years for defrauding clients of $2 million
June 22, 2018 by Sean Emery
A former insurance agent who admitted to stealing more than $2 million dollars from his clients was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay $3.5 million-plus in restitution and fines.
Brian Smart, 41, agreed to an Orange County Superior Court offer requiring him to plead guilty to 15 felonies, including grand theft, theft from an elder and money laundering.
Along with the prison sentence, Smart was ordered to pay about $1.8 million in restitution and $1.8 million in fines, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors allege that while Smart was working for an Anaheim-based insurance firm in 2005 and 2006, he persuaded several elderly individuals to liquidate their annuities and give him the money to put in what he claimed would be safe, high-yield investments.
Smart instead put the money into his own account, prosecutors allege, and used the funds for his own personal expenses, such as buying a home.
One investor agreed to sell her home to raise money to give to Smart for his promised investments. Prosecutors said some of the victims were left without any retirement funds.
Smart moved to Utah in 2006. He gave about $200,000 back to some of the victims, before ending those payments in January 2008, according to the DA’s Office.
The California Department of Insurance began investigating Smart that year after hearing from several investors who hadn’t received any money from him. Smart was arrested at his Utah home on Sept. 12, 2012 and extradited to Orange County several days later.
