Lindberg’s Right-Hand Man Sentenced to Two Years After Cooperating With Prosecutors

Almost four years after he pleaded guilty, the top associate to convicted briber, insurance entrepreneur and fraudster Greg Lindberg has been sentenced to two years in prison.

Christopher Herwig, who was chief investment officer for Lindberg’s Eli Global and other companies, also must forfeit $842,000, the federal judge in the Western District of North Carolina ordered on Wednesday.

Lindberg, convicted of attempting to bribe North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey in 2018, was also convicted of skimming more than $2 billion in reserves from his life insurance and reinsurance companies and using the proceeds to fund other projects and to pay for jets, mansions and a 214-foot yacht.

Prosecutors have called it one of the largest insurance fraud schemes in U.S. history. Lindberg is now serving a 12-year sentence in federal prison.

Herwig, a chartered financial analyst who worked closely with Lindberg for years, has been remorseful and cooperative with prosecutors since his indictment, court filings suggest. He was convicted in December 2022, but prosecutors held off on sentencing recommendations until after Lindberg’s prosecution was final.

Herwig’s sentencing memorandum, filed by his attorney, said the years since his indictment gave him more time with his family and community. The memo also gave Herwig’s account of Lindberg’s illicit actions through the years.

For years, Herwig said, all seemed well with Lindberg’s far-flung business enterprises.

“It was not until 2016, when Lindberg began to stray from the company’s original path and changed its investment models, that things went sideways,” the memo reads. Lindberg “was the controlling party with ultimate financial control and interest over multiple insurance companies, dozens of operating companies, and more than a hundred holding and pass-through entities.”

Herwig was “swept into the vortex” of Lindberg’s schemes and began to turn a blind eye.

“Chris caused numerous wire transfers that took funds away from insurance companies, represented to the North Carolina Department of Insurance that the FINCO investment structures were ‘unaffiliated’ with Global Growth (formerly known as Eli Global), falsely represented to ULICO that the investments held as cash in the ULICO 2017 Trust were properly classified under the affiliated definition, and signed off on Lindberg’s $3.1 mortgage purchased by the ULICO 2017 Trust,” the memo notes.

Lindberg was the mastermind, and he “manipulated individuals, insurance companies, the Insurance Commission, trusts, and others to bend to his will.”

Herwig’s sentencing came two days after the federal judge overseeing much of the prosecution and litigation that resulted from Lindberg’s actions chastised Lindberg for trying to escape further restitution.

Lindberg’s attorneys have said that Lindberg had refunded $1 billion to the victims of his financial schemes before he was ordered to do so by the courts, The Charlotte Observer reported. But a court-appointed special master who examined the books has found that Lindberg still owes more than $1.6 billion. Lindberg now disputes that, saying he owes nothing more.

This week, U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn questioned Lindberg’s motives.

“The defendant, and possibly strategically, wanted to show he was going to pay restitution for a lighter sentence,” Cogburn said, the Observer reported.

But now that Lindberg’s 12-year sentence was not as light as he had hoped, “he wants that money back,” Cogburn noted.

Lindberg was left without counsel for part of the proceedings, after his attorneys had withdrawn from the case and other attorneys had filed court papers without signatures, the newspaper reported.

Top image: Insurance Journal photo illustration