Maryland Couple Sentenced in $20 Million Insurance Fraud Scheme

According to Insurance Journal, after an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, the Maryland Insurance Administration, and the Maryland Attorney General, husband and wife, James and Maureen Wilson of Owings Mills, MD, were officially sentenced last month for orchestrating a $20 million insurance fraud scheme.

Court documents indicate that the Wilsons, “conspired to defraud insurance companies by obtaining over 40 life insurance policies for applicants by mispresenting their health, wealth, and existing life insurance coverage. The total death benefits from these policies exceeded $20 million.”

Prosecutors also stated that, “they also conspired to defraud individual investors to obtain funds that Wilson used to pay premiums on fraudulently obtained life insurance policies.”

Furthermore, “To conceal the fraud, the Wilsons transferred the money they made from the fraud through multiple bank accounts, including accounts in the name of trusts. The Wilsons filed false individual income tax returns for 2018 and 2019, which did not report as income or pay tax on the approximately $5.7 million and $2 million, respectively, they made from the fraud.”

James Wilson was sentenced to 12 years in prison, and Maureen Wilson was sentenced to 4 years in prison. Subsequently, the Wilsons will both serve 3 years of supervised release and are ordered to pay approximately $16 million in restitution to the victims, $2.7 million in restitution to the United States, and a forfeiture of approximately $14.8 million in funds that were seized.

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