Ex-Tucson insurance agent gets 11 years in prison for defrauding elderly client

A former Tucson insurance agent was sentenced to over 11 years in prison for defrauding an elderly client of over $1 million.

Koreasa Maria Williams, 47, was sentenced Sept. 30 to 136 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution to her victim after she pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud, a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office District of Arizona said. This sentence was ordered to run concurrent to a 51-month sentence for an earlier annuity fraud scheme.

In October 2018, Williams advised her 80-year-old client to cash out eight life insurance policies and obtain approximately $1 million under the false promise that the life insurance funds would be better invested in annuities after she realized she was under investigation for an earlier annuity theft scheme, the news release said.

She tricked the client into writing two checks totaling over $1 million to a law firm under the guise that the law firm worked for Williams' annuity company and that the funds would be used to purchase an annuity for the victim. She then delivered the checks from the client and told the law firm the checks were a loan from her "rich uncle," the news release said.

Williams directed the law firm to use the money to pay back multiple victims from the earlier annuity theft scheme to try and avoid criminal charges. After she was indicted in the earlier theft scheme and released on bond in May 2019, Williams deceived the client into giving her additional funds between June and December, the news release said.

She then used that money for herself and her family over the next six months via thousands of dollars in cash withdrawals, supermarket and convenience store debits, car payments, cable fees, movie theater purchases, donations to a religious ministry in North Carolina, her local church and a local charity, the news release said.