Documents: O’Garro Admitted To Creating Phony Website In Scam

Jan. 31--HARTFORD -- Earl O'Garro, Jr. testified during a civil trial that he created a phony website and e-mail account in an attempt to scam a company out of several hundred thousand dollars, according to documents newly obtained by The Courant.

AmTrust E&S Insurance Services has filed a lawsuit against O'Garro, the CEO of Hybrid Insurance Group in Hartford, accusing him of posing as one of their underwriters in order to secure payments from another company, Capital Premium Financing, for four policies that did not exist.

The suit also charges that Hybrid received $300,000 for premiums on more than a dozen policies, but failed to send the money to AmTrust.

During a Dec. 4 civil proceeding in Hartford Superior Court, O'Garro told Judge Carl Schuman and AmTrust's attorney that he purchased a web domain name that closely matched that of AmTrust's in a scheme to obtain more than $600,000 in premium payments.

O'Garro testified that he directed a local IT provider, MD Tech Team, to create the fictitious domain and e-mail account on July 10. Capital had wanted verification that the four policies were real, O'Garro said.

Capital Premium relied on the e-mail, and the verification provided in it, in deciding to release the funds to O'Garro, according to testimony in the case.

"Why did I need to verify the existence of those four non-existent policies? To receive financing from Capital Premium Finance," said O'Garro, according to a court transcript. Under questioning from Andrew O'Toole, the lawyer for AmTrust, O'Garro acknowledged that he did not have permission to create the phony website or e-mail account.

O'Toole asked O'Garro why he tried to take down the domain only a day after he sent the e-mail in which he posed as an AmTrust employee.

"Specifically you said, Please get rid of it. Correct?" O'Toole said.

"Yeah," O'Garro replied. "That's correct."

"Why did you want a domain name registered for one day and then taken down the next?" O'Toole asked.

"Because I no longer needed the domain name," O'Garro said. "The e-mail was already sent."

David C. Lewis, the president of AmTrust E&S, testified that O'Garro sent an e-mail with the domain name AmTrustgrp.com. The company's real domain name is AmTrustgroup.com.

In the e-mail to Capital, Lewis said, O'Garro pretended to be a female AmTrust employee named Regina. Posing as the woman, O'Garro claimed to be "on her way back from Rocky Hill," and included a cell phone number with a Connecticut area code. The real AmTrust underwriter, who works out of California, had never been to Rocky Hill, Lewis said.

"In addition," Lewis said, "the listing of accounts [in the e-mail] with the policy numbers are not our policy numbers. We verified that we did not issue those policies nor [are those] our policy numbers."

O'Toole asked O'Garro, "How much money did you obtain as a result of your misrepresentations?"

"I don't remember," O'Garro answered.

"In excess of $600,000?"

"I would imagine," O'Garro replied. "Yeah."

O'Garro told the court that he took full responsibility for the e-mail scam. He said MD Tech Team had no knowledge of his intentions.

Lewis also testified that about $300,000 in premium payments given to O'Garro by retail agents was held in a trust account, instead of being forwarded to AmTrust.

AmTrust is seeking $300,000 and has asked the court to garnish all of O'Garro's bank accounts, real estate and personal property. Schuman had ordered that O'Garro disclose his assets by Jan. 8. After he failed to do so, O'Toole filed a motion for contempt against O'Garro.

O'Garro's attorney, Kevin Roche, has objected to the motion. A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 5.

A spokeswoman for AmTrust has declined to comment on the suit. O'Garro, 31, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

O'Garro, who formed Hybrid in 2010, is now the target of a federal grand jury investigation. The FBI is investigating O'Garro for allegedly failing to pay premiums on several insurance plans, including policies for the city of Hartford. City and school officials have said he did not pay $670,000 in premiums to two of Hartford's insurance carriers last July.

Accusations that he created a fake website and e-mail address to extract payments first came to light in October, when the state Insurance Department lodged an 11-count complaint against O'Garro and Hybrid.

The state revoked O'Garro's insurance license in November after he failed to respond to the complaint.

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