Insurance agent sentenced for 8 years for racketeering
On May 12, State Attorney Bill Eddins announced the arrest of Randall Peterson. Peterson was a Cantonment insurance agent who conducted a fraudulent insurance scheme while operating under multiple business names which involved the theft of several hundred thousand dollars of commissions and bonuses from American National Insurance Company and Liberty National Insurance Company.
Peterson’s scheme began with him advertising job opportunities on the Internet for his fictitious company, College Consultants of the Gulf Coast. He then had hundreds of applicants provide information for life insurance which he and his associates expressed to the job applicants as a free job benefit. The prosecutor’s office showed that Peterson used the information from the job applicants to complete life insurance applications that he submitted to the insurance companies in order to receive advanced commissions, which were as much as 130 percent of the first year premiums and bonuses.
Randall Peterson was found guilty of racketeering and money laundering by Circuit Court Judge Ross Goodman. The state will request at a future hearing that restitution be set at an amount over $500,000.