Phony insurance agent sentenced to prison
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A phony insurance agent has been sentenced to three to five years in prison and seven years of probation for selling fake insurance policies to 87 commercial environmental businesses nationally, the Arizona attorney general said in a statement Tuesday.
Attorney General Mark Brnovich said Brian McFarland had forged his name onto an Arizona insurance producer’s license of another agent with the same last name, and used that stolen identity and producer’s license to sell insurance under the name Legends Environmental Insurance Services L.L.C.
In 2013, Legends merged with Insurances Office of America Inc., which discovered Mr. McFarland’s forgery during a background check, and reported it to the Arizona Department of Insurance DOI Fraud unit.
In a joint effort between the insurance department and the New Jersey Department of Insurance, Mr. McFarland was arrested for fraud schemes, identity theft and theft in 2016, according to the statement.
The DOI fraud unit found Mr. McFarland set up fraudulent bank accounts under Legends’ name without the agency’s knowledge and diverted more than $450,000 in premium payments into his own bank account. Mr. McFarland pleaded guilty to one count of “fraudulent schemes and artifices” and two counts of theft in December 2017.
A spokesman for the Arizona attorney general’s office could not be reached for further details.
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