2019 saw partial resolution of county commission's insurance fraud case

Dec. 28--Anyone would have a hard time recalling the last year without thinking about the insurance fraud trial of current Glynn County commissioner and former local insurance agent Bob Coleman, which ended with the jury declaring him innocent on all counts in November.

A Glynn County grand jury hit both Bob Coleman and his wife, Sherry, with a 15-count indictment in January -- six counts of insurance fraud and nine counts of violating the Georgia Insurance Code's reporting and disposition of premium requirement.

In June, a grand jury issued another indictment, this one aimed at Bob Coleman alone. Similarly, the second indictment included two charges of insurance fraud and two charges of violating the Georgia Insurance Code.

It wasn't until November that Coleman got his day in court. By the end of the four-day trial on the six-count June indictment, the judge and jury had weighed the evidence and found him not guilty.

During the trial, prosecutors Robert German, assistant district attorney of the Brunswick Judicial Circuit, and Doug Williams, a criminal investigator for the State Board of Workers' Compensation, called on the alleged victims of the crimes laid out on the January and June indictment to testify.

The first four counts sprung from allegations made by Robert Gary Jr.

He claimed that he made three payments to Coleman Insurance Agency for his car insurance but had his coverage canceled due to non-payment the same month he made his third payment.

Coleman's defense attorney, Alan Tucker of Tucker & Browning Law, aimed his line of questioning at determining who exactly Gary dealt with.

While he had interacted with Bob Coleman on occasion, all but the third payment had been handled by Sherry Coleman, Gary said.

Sometime before, Bob Coleman had sold the business to Jeff Guest of Family First Insurance.

Gary's third payment came the day before Guest as to officially take ownership.

Coleman put the money in the till and filed the receipt, leaving it in the hands of Guest and Sherry Coleman, who would be working for Guest on a contract basis during the transition and had been handling Gary's account.

As such, Tucker argued that Bob Coleman could not be held liable for his wife's alleged mistakes.

The fifth and sixths counts stemmed from allegations that Coleman had taken payments for workers compensation insurance from William Daniel Wilson, owner of Mac's Bar-be-cue in Sterling, and instead took the money for himself.

During the trial, Wilson testified that he'd called both Bob Sherry Coleman, to the restaurant in 2017 to discuss workers' compensation insurance.

The conversation shifted to general liability insurance, which Wilson also needed as a condition of his lease.

When Bob Coleman presented him with the paperwork for a commercial package policy, he assumed it included both general liability insurance and workers' comp, and labored for more than a year under that misapprehension.

German argued that Bob Coleman as an insurance agent had a responsibility to ensure Wilson, a layman in regards to insurance, got what he needed.

Visiting Superior Court Judge David Cavender dropped the fifth and six counts due to a lack of evidence supporting Wilson's allegations.

Tucker brought multiple pieces of evidence to discredit Wilson's claims, including an email from Coleman Insurance to Wilson requesting additional information needed to write his workers compensation policy.

Wilson admitted he had not seen the email, as he did not check his email much.

His money had been returned, Tucker said.

While the jury was not being asked to rule on the 15-count January indictment, the judge allowed the alleged victims in that case to testify.

German argued that, even if they weren't involved in the November trial dealing specifically with the six-count June indictment, their testimonies could help the jury by providing information on the procedures and practices of the Coleman Insurance Agency.

Several people testified that, as individuals and business owners, they had paid the Colemans for services they did not receive, and prosecutors presented receipts as evidence.

On two occasions, prosecutors called employees from insurance companies to the stand to testify that they not, in fact, received premiums or certain information from the Colemans, leading to policies being dropped or not written in the first place.

Via the testimonies, prosecutors attempted to establish a pattern of mismanaging money that, whether intentional or not, harmed innocent people who "simply wanted insurance," as German said on multiple occasions throughout the trial.

German told the judge and jury that the intent was to lay bare the business practices employed at Coleman Insurance Agency and to show it was not only possible but probable that the Colemans committed the crimes alleged in the six-count June indictment.

When his turn to question those on the stand came around, Coleman's defense attorney, Alan Tucker of Tucker & Browning Law, did his best to bring details of their stories into doubt.

In many cases -- particularly in regards to allegations in the June indictment -- he noted that the alleged victims dealt mostly or exclusively with Sherry Coleman. He told the jury that Bob Coleman should not be held accountable for his wife's alleged mistakes.

Ultimately, only the four counts dealing with Gary's allegations went to the jury. Prosecutors were unsuccessful in swaying the jury, which returned a verdict of not guilty on the first four counts.

Bob and Sherry Coleman have both maintained their innocence. In a public statement following the June indictment, Bob Coleman called for the public to give them the benefit of the doubt and to observe the assumption of innocence.

"My wife Sherry and I are innocent of the charges that have been made against us. We intend to prove our innocence in the courts of Glynn County. Nothing is more important to us than our good name and reputation. In the meantime, I am going back to work on behalf of the people of Glynn County," Coleman wrote in the statement.

After the jury delivered its verdict in November, Coleman reiterated his statement.

"It's like I said from the beginning. I never stole any money in my life, and I'm not going to start now," Coleman said outside the courtroom following the trial.

While he was declared innocent of the six counts issued in June, he and his wife still have the remaining 15 counts from January to contend with. As of Friday, no court dates had been set in the case.

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(c)2019 The Brunswick News (Brunswick, Ga.)

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