Jason Crozier, 45-year-old Franklin, NJ resident, was sentenced to a five-year state prison term last month. Crozier’s crime was particularly heinous, as he impersonated and preyed on his elderly relative in an attempt to steal $5,500 from an annuity.
Between April 4 and May 15, 2013, according to the Attorney General’s Office and Joe Carlson of the New Jersey Herald, Crozier contacted Prudential Insurance Company of America and impersonated his female relative through a series of phone calls. He also mailed the insurance company his relative’s personal identifying information, such as her social security number, date of birth, annuity contract number and other documentation in order to withdraw funds from the annuity account without her permission.
Crozier was charged and found guilty of second-degree insurance fraud, third-degree attempted theft by deception, and fourth-degree identity theft. In the sentencing hearing in state Superior Court last month, Judge William J McGovern sentenced Crozier to five years in state prison (5 years for insurance fraud, and concurrent sentences for attempted theft by deception and identity theft).
Crozier was originally facing up to 10 years in prison for the insurance fraud charge, but Judge McGovern noted that regardless of his substantial criminal history, Crozier has since “stayed out of trouble and seemed to have turned his life around.”
“I’m sorry for what’s happened,” Crozier said. “I’ve changed my life around. I got off of drugs, ahold of my anger issue. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to get this behind me. It’s the only issue I have. I want to get it over with as quickly as possible, go home and be productive as I have the last couple of years.”