A federal grand jury on January 30 indicted a Massachusetts married couple for their alleged involvement in a scheme to defraud individuals and insurance providers through their business, BL Insurance Brokerage, LLC.
According to U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley of the District of Massachusetts, Brendan Lawler and Lisa Lawler, of New Bedford, were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. In total, through this scheme, federal prosecutors allege that the Lawlers defrauded at least 50 individuals or insurance providers and stole more than $750,000 from insurance providers, premium finance companies and hard money lenders.
According to Foley, both defendants were previously charged by criminal complaint in August 2025 and will appear in federal court in Boston at a later date.
The charges are allegations and the Lawlers are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
According to the charging documents, from March 2023 through March 2024, the Lawlers allegedly solicited and collected insurance payments from BL Insurance’s clients that should have been paid to the clients’ insurance providers. However in many cases, instead of paying the insurance companies what the companies were owed and keeping only the commission, the Lawlers are alleged to have pocketed the full amount of their clients’ payments and used the money for their own purposes, including to make personal purchases and pay off their loans, utility bills, and personal credit card balances.
The couple also allegedly used incoming client funds to pay outstanding balances due to other clients’ insurers, and they allegedly created and distributed certain insurance documents such as certificates of insurance to clients that falsely suggested that the clients were insured.
Prosecutors maintain that when clients discovered that they did not have the coverage they had paid for, the Lawlers made excuses to conceal the scheme. In addition to the false certificates of insurance, they allegedly also sent clients images of mail tracking numbers, receipts, and checks that they falsely claimed showed payments that they had mailed or made. Sometimes, prosecutors maintain, the Lawlers refunded complaining clients or belatedly paid for the clients’ coverage, often using another client’s insurance payment to do so.
Court documents claim that the Lawlers defrauded stole at least $462,247.89 from insurance providers and premium finance companies, as well as at least $307,486.33 from lenders.
According to an affidavit, the victims included an insurance brokerage in Daytona Beach, Florida that obtained insurance coverage for its clients and insurance customers who operated law offices in New Bedford and East Boston.
On its website, BL Insurance had identified itself as a full-service insurance brokerage in Fairhaven that was licensed in several states, including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey, and Connecticut. BL Insurance purported to offer professional liability, general liability, commercial property, financial products, and personal insurance.
The charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000, or twice the loss to the victim.
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