North Chesterfield Insurance Agent Jailed for Swindling Employer, Clients

A North Chesterfield insurance and annuities agent has been sentenced to one year and three months in prison for mail fraud after swindling his employer and clients in multiple schemes.

Joseph O’Carroll III, 52, of North Chesterfield, Virginia, was sentenced to prison by U.S. District Judge David J. Novak on March 23, 2023, for his crimes, which occurred from August 2017 through March 2020.

According to court documents, O’Carroll scammed his employer for commissions and incentives by writing insurance policies for individuals without their consent or knowledge. He used the personal identifying information (PII) of clients, including their names, dates of birth, social security numbers, and bank account numbers, to apply for fraudulent life insurance policies in their names and forged their signatures on the applications.

O’Carroll created and maintained email addresses purportedly belonging to his clients, which he then listed on the insurance applications to facilitate communications with the insurance companies. For one client, O’Carroll listed his own BB&T checking account from which the issuing insurance company was to automatically withdraw the premiums on applications for the policies. For other clients, O’Carroll listed the clients’ bank accounts. When the policies were issued, the insurance companies began withdrawing and attempting to withdraw premium payments from the listed bank accounts.

While attempts to withdraw payments from O’Carroll’s bank account were unsuccessful, resulting in the cancellation of those policies, premiums were withdrawn from other client accounts, resulting in thousands of dollars being taken from them. On at least one policy, O’Carroll listed himself as the beneficiary, claiming the client was ‘out of it’ at the time due to the death of the client’s wife.

O’Carroll also obtained most of the balance of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (“ESOP”) account belonging to a client with the promise to reinvest the funds in another qualified retirement account. However, he deposited the funds into a bank account he controlled and kept and used the funds for his own personal expenses without the client’s knowledge or consent.

O’Carroll pled guilty on January 18, 2023, and was sentenced in accordance with his plea agreement. The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Jessica D. Aber, and Ajay Lall, Acting Inspector in Charge of the Washington Division of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, made the announcement after sentencing.

The U.S. Attorney thanked the Virginia State Corporation Commission’s Bureau of Insurance for their assistance in the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kashan Pathan and Mike C. Moore, and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Kaitlin G. Cooke, prosecuted the case.

The Central Virginia Financial Crimes Task Force, created in 2022, is a partnership between federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies and representatives of local financial institutions. Co-chaired by the Richmond Field Office of the United States Secret Service and the Washington Division of the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Task Force utilizes the knowledge and experience of its many partners to develop intelligence and pursue investigations into crimes that target or involve financial institutions located throughout the Central Virginia region.

The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Central Virginia Financial Crimes Task Force.

RELATED: North Chesterfield Agent Sentenced for Scamming Clients, Employer

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