Former North Jersey Insurance Agent Sentenced for Insurance Fraud

TRENTON, N.J., Sept. 17 -- The New Jersey Attorney General issued the following news release:

Attorney General Paula T. Dow and Criminal Justice Director Stephen J. Taylor announced that a former North Jersey insurance agency employee was sentenced to state prison today for diverting life insurance proceeds to himself.

According to Acting Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Riza Dagli, Luigi Sacco, 50, of Fair Lawn, was sentenced to three years in state prison by Superior Court Judge Stuart Peim in Union County and was ordered to pay $13,325 in restitution. Sacco also agreed to pay a $3,500 civil penalty. Sacco was sentenced based on his guilty plea to second-degree insurance fraud. The charge was contained in a Union County indictment returned on Feb. 24.

In pleading guilty on June 21, Sacco, who worked as an agent for Monumental Life Insurance Company, located in Union, admitted that between Aug. 27, 2004 and Dec. 16, 2005, he submitted false disbursement request forms purportedly representing the requests of certain life insurance policy holders to claim insurance proceeds from Monumental Life Insurance Company, knowing the requests were false. He then cashed the Monumental checks himself or had them made payable to the Hands and Ears Crisis Center (Helping Hands), which cashed them and, in turn, transmitted the proceeds to Sacco. The investigation by the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor revealed that more than $60,000 was stolen from Monumental through this scheme.

On Dec. 9, 2009, a co-conspirator, Vincent Scaturro, 57, of Lodi, pleaded guilty before Superior Court Judge Joseph P. Donohue in Union County to an accusation charging him with third-degree insurance fraud and was subsequently sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay restitution. By pleading guilty, Scaturro admitted that he submitted false disbursement request forms purportedly representing the requests of certain life insurance policyholders to claim insurance proceeds from Monumental Life Insurance Company, knowing these requests were false. He admitted that he retained the insurance policy proceeds for himself.

Detective Sherri Stevens and Deputy Attorney General Dennis Kwasnik were assigned to the investigation. Kwasnik represented the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor at the sentencing. Acting Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Dagli thanked Monumental Life Insurance Company for referring this matter to the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor and for assisting in the investigation.