DALLAS – A Denton County insurance agent was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison for issuing policies to people who appeared to be wealthy and were seeking insurance for estate planning purposes, federal officials announced Friday.
Officials said the insurance policies, however, were for applicants who were of modest financial means, and the policies were intended to be transferred to investors. The scam happened between October 2007 to April 2009, according to officials.
U.S. District Judge Reed C. O’Connor sentenced Vincent Bazemore, 40, formerly of Aubrey, Texas, to serve 24 years and four months in prison and ordered him to pay more than $4 million in restitution.
In July, it took a jury an hour to convict Bazemore on all four courts of mail fraud, federal officials. Bazemore also submitted the fake insurance applications to financial institutions to obtain premium financing on the policies.
The agreements that Bazemore had with insurance companies was that he could get a commission of 95 to 105 percent of the first year’s premium paid on each policy, federal officials said.
Bazemore solicited elderly individuals to apply for policies by representing that the life insurance was an investment with no financial cost and would result in a sizable monetary benefit to the individual’s heirs, officials said.
Bazemore prepared the applications and related insurance documents that had forged signatures and falsified financial information to get the life insurance companies into issuing the policies, authorities said.