September 2, 2003
Pennsylvania's Insurance Commissioner, Diane Koken, accepted a $9.2 million check from Patrick Meehan, United States Attorney for the Eastern District, representing assets forfeited in the fraud case involving Allen W. Stewart's leveraged buy-out of Summit National Life Insurance Company and Equitable Beneficial Life Insurance Company.
The money will be used to pay consumers' policy claims.
"Today's event is the culmination of a massive U.S. and Pennsylvania investigation that involved hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence and scores of witnesses. The aim was to recover as much as possible for Summit National and EBL policyholders who lost their savings and their dreams for retirement," Koken said.
"With this check, the amount that we have been able to recover from federal prosecution and our third-party recovery actions for these estates now stands at more than $75 million dollars. That means that more than 94 percent of policyholder losses have been recovered," Koken said.
Stewart was convicted of 135 counts of RICO, wire and mail fraud, and money laundering after a six-week trial in December 1997 and is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence.
The U.S. Attorney's Office previously paid the Pennsylvania Insurance Department $7.6 million for the prior recovery of some of Stewart's forfeited assets. So far the department has recovered a total of $16.8 million from the forfeitures.
