A plea deal has been reached with a former Genesee County, Michigan, insurance agent who allegedly embezzled from her clients and provided them with phony insurance certificates for home and auto insurance, the state’s department of insurance reported.
The Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS) said Angella Kay Swain, 53, has pleaded no contest to one count of conducting a criminal enterprise, 11 counts of embezzlement by an agent between $1,000 and $20,000, and one count of using a computer to commit a crime.
Swain was charged in October 2018 after the DIFS referred the case to the state’s attorney general’s office.
As part of the plea deal, Swain agreed to pay back all the money she allegedly embezzled, between $100,000 and $150,000, in restitution to approximately 60 victims. Preliminary sentencing guidelines recommend that Swain serve a minimum of 36-60 months in prison, up to a maximum of 20 years. Her sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 26.
Conducting a criminal enterprise and using a computer to commit a crime are both 20-year felonies, while each of the felony embezzlement charges carries a five-year sentence.
Between 2011 and 2016, Swain took some of her clients’ insurance premiums and converted the money to her own use instead of remitting them to the insurance companies. In many instances, Swain issued her clients false insurance certificates, leading her clients to believe they had homeowners or auto insurance coverage when they did not.
Swain was a licensed insurance producer and operated the Swain Agency from 2002 to 2013.
DIFS took enforcement actions against Swain in 2003, 2006 and 2009. In 2013, DIFS summarily suspended Swain’s insurance producer license and permanently revoked it in December 2014 for misappropriating clients’ premiums.
In November 2013, Swain’s ex-husband, Cornell Jones Sr., began operating the Select Insurance Agency, where Swain continued to sell fake insurance policies.
Through her operation of the Swain Agency and the Select Insurance Agency, multiple victims reportedly paid for homeowner’s or vehicle insurance between 2011 and 2016 but did not receive coverage. In some instances, the victims discovered they lacked insurance after they were in automobile accidents and tried to make claims against canceled policies.
Jones, 70, of Flint, had his insurance producer license revoked by DIFS in 2016.
Source: Michigan DIFS
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