Insurance agent sentenced to prison for fraud

July 25--SCRANTON -- A South Abington Twp. insurance agent will spend up to six years in prison and will have to make more than $192,000 in restitution for defrauding business clients.

Timothy A. Hewitt, 42, was sentenced Tuesday in Lackawanna County Court by President Judge Michael J. Barrasse to a total of 19 to 72 months in state prison, followed by 12 years of probation, on five counts of insurance fraud and one count of forgery.

All of the charges are third-degree felonies.

The judge also ordered Hewitt to make restitution of $192,718.42.

Hewitt was arrested last July after an investigation by the Northeastern Pennsylvania Insurance Fraud Task Force and charged with defrauding three Susquehanna County companies: Diaz Forest Products and Diaz Stone and Pallet, both of Harford, and Diaz Manufacturing, Montrose.

According to investigators, Hewitt continued to collect premiums from the companies for insurance policies he allowed to lapse and overbilled Diaz Stone and Pallet on some of its policies.

In October, the task force filed similar charges against Hewitt involving three businesses in Luzerne County: Arc Electric, Hazleton, and Hi-Tech Flooring and Designtech Interiors, Kingston.

Hewitt took money from the businesses to post bonds they needed to perform certain jobs but never remitted payment to the surety company that would insure the bonds, investigators said.

Hewitt pleaded guilty on March 26.

In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to drop more than 30 other felony counts of forgery and theft.

Contact the writer: dsingleton@timesshamrock.com, 570-348-9132

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