Scott Cresswell Pleads Guilty in $3M Insurance Fraud Scheme

Scott Cresswell, 52, of Ionia, NY, has pleaded guilty in federal court for his role in a multi-million dollar insurance fraud scheme. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York announced that Cresswell, who served as the Chief Operating Officer for Morgan Management, LLC, between March 2017 and April 2018, conspired to defraud insurers out of millions through false repair claims.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorneys John D. Fabian and Douglas A.C. Penrose, Cresswell was part of a larger conspiracy directed by Robert Morgan and others. In one instance, he received a $2,500,000 contract for repairs at the Summerwood Apartments in Indiana but caused an inflated invoice totaling $3,236,519 to be sent to an insurer. This scheme was repeated at the Eden Square Apartments in Pennsylvania, where the actual repair costs were under $175,000, yet Cresswell and associates presented a false bill of over $263,000.

From June 2017 to January 2018, Cresswell was involved in presenting false invoices for repairs on 34 properties affected by a windstorm in Rochester. The scheme aimed to bilk insurance companies out of an estimated $5,860,000, yielding a profit of nearly $2,210,000 for Morgan Management. U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy Jr. emphasized that their efforts were ongoing to unravel the full extent of this fraudulent operation.

Cresswell faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of over $5.9 million, depending on his sentencing by Judge Elizabeth A. Wolford at a later date. The investigation into this fraud was conducted by the FBI and the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of Inspector General.

“With today’s plea, we’ve peeled back another layer in an extensive fraud scheme,” Kennedy said. “Our efforts will not stop until the full picture is uncovered.”