Insurance Agent Found Not Guilty in Fraud Probe

Tuesday, November 26, 2019 | 0

A county commissioner and insurance agent was found not guilty Friday, six months after he and his wife were indicted on charges of accepting premium payments but never placing workers' compensation and other insurance policies.

Bob Coleman

A jury in Glynn County, Georgia, found Bob Coleman not guilty on six counts of fraud and insurance code violations, according to a local news report. At the trial last week, prosecutors played a recording of a state Workers' Compensation Commission investigator interviewing Coleman. Coleman said his wife handled placement of policies.

“How about a double-capital amen,” Coleman said after the verdict was announced on Friday. “It’s like I said from the beginning. I never stole any money in my life, and I’m not going to start now.”

A defense lawyer showed that the evidence against Coleman was not as strong as prosecutors had hoped. A restaurant owner said he had never seen an email from Coleman's agency that more information was needed before placing a workers' compensation policy. And in some cases, Coleman refunded premiums for coverage that had never been placed.

Coleman and his wife, Sherry, still face 15 counts of felony violations of the Georgia Insurance Code. Those include five counts of insurance fraud and nine counts of violating the code’s reporting and disposition of premium requirement.

A date has not been set for that trial.