Former Stamford businessman Daniel Carpenter has been found guilty of 57 counts of conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, money laundering and illegal monetary transactions.
The charges arose from a scheme to defraud insurance companies into issuing insurance policies on the lives of elderly people for the benefit of Carpenter and other investors, in what is known as a stranger-originated life insurance (STOLI) scheme.
Carpenter ran a number of companies under the name Charter Oak Trust, whose employees would typically approach elderly individuals with a pitch for two years”™ free life insurance if they agreed that those policies could be controlled by Charter Oak as an investment or resold on a third-party life insurance policy market ”“ at which point the individuals were promised a portion of those proceeds.
Prosecutors showed that Carpenter, working with insurance agents, caused to be submitted to several insurance providers numerous insurance applications that contained several material misrepresentations, including falsely denying that third parties were paying the premiums for the insurance, falsely denying discussions about the resale of the policies, falsely inflating the net worth and/or income of the insured, and falsely claiming that the insurance was being purchased for legitimate estate planning-related needs.
U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny has scheduled sentencing for August 26. Carpenter faces a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years on each count of mail and wire fraud and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years on each count of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering, and a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years on each count of making illegal monetary transactions.
Carpenter is currently serving a 36-month sentence for a previous mail and wire fraud conviction in Massachusetts.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And in the case of stranger owned life insurance, it’s also illegal!