TOLEDO, Ohio - A businessman convicted of running the largest insurance fraud in state history has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
J. Richard Jamieson also was ordered on Friday to repay $92 million to nearly 3,000 investors who lost money in the collapse of Jamieson's Liberte Capital Group LLC in 2000.
U.S. District Judge David Katz received letters from about 200 of the mostly older investors, many of whom said they were crippled financially by the scheme.
In this case
it is clear from the multitude of letters and testimony at trial... that many investors worked very hard saved their money and now have lost it
Katz said.
A jury found Jamieson, 41, guilty of money laundering and fraud on June 21. Attorneys for the Ottawa Hills resident have said they will appeal.
Prosecutors have said his company bought and sold life insurance policies that were obtained fraudulently by people who concealed conditions such as AIDS, prosecutors have said.
Liberte Capital bought the policies at a fraction of the payout value, giving the terminally ill money they could use right away. Investors were to be paid off when the person died, but lost out when many insurers began canceling the policies before they could be claimed.
The Ohio Department of Insurance called it the largest insurance fraud in state history.
Jamieson's partner and the company's former accountant, James Capwill, was sentenced in March to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to money laundering.
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