Equine Insurance Agent Sentenced in $1.3 Million Fraud Scheme

U.S. Attorney's Office

District of Rhode Island

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Equine Insurance Agent Sentenced in $1.3 Million Fraud Scheme

PROVIDENCE - A Middletown insurance agent/owner specializing in providing equine insurance coverage who admitted to operating various schemes which defrauded customers, insurance companies, and finance companies of approximately $1.3 million dollars was sentenced yesterday to 36 months in federal prison.

At sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge John J. McConnell, Jr., also ordered Randall N. Levesque, 57, of Middletown, owner of Equine Insurance Services, LLC and Randall Levesque Agency, to serve 3 years supervised release upon completion of his term of incarceration and to pay restitution to the victims of his schemes totaling $1,382,815.08.

Levesque pled guilty on December 12, 2018, to wire fraud.

Levesque's sentence is announced by United States Attorney Aaron L. Weisman, Special Agent in Charge of the United States Secret Service Stephen Marks, and Superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police Colonel James M. Manni.

At the time of his guilty plea, Levesque admitted to the Court that he overbilled and double-billed customers when billing their credit cards for premiums due on policies, some of which the client did not request or did not agree to finance, at times forging the customers' signature; collected premiums on insurance policies issued by at least two insurance companies but, upon receipt from customers, did not forward the payments to the insurance companies; and, at times, financed premiums and received funds on behalf of customers without the customers' consent or knowledge, and submitted financing agreements to finance companies for fictitious customers, for whom there were no policies.

According to Court documents, Levesque collected but did not remit to insurance companies over $800,000 in premiums; fraudulently obtained over $500,000 in financed premiums from at least two finance companies; and charged customers' credit cards a total of approximately $80,000 for premiums that he failed to provide to insurance companies.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sandra R. Hebert. The matter was investigated by the United States Secret Service and Rhode Island State Police.

Contact:

Jim Martin (401) 709-5357

Press Release Number:

21

Updated March 12, 2019