Kansas City Agent Convicted of Fraud Sentenced to 15 Years in Jail

The Kansas Insurance Department (KID) reported that a former Kansas City-area insurance agent has been convicted on federal charges of insurance and mortgage fraud, and handed a 15-year jail term.

Investigators from the KID Anti-fraud Division provided federal authorities with more than 30 cases that had been opened in the investigation of Ron Brown, a former Kansas City, Kan., insurance agent.

Brown was convicted Jan. 6 in federal court on wire fraud and money laundering counts, according to the insurance department. He was sentenced to serve 15 years in jail, with three years’ supervised probation following the incarceration, and he was ordered to pay back more than $3.1 million in restitution to his victims. Brown’s prison sentence is set to run concurrently, so he will be in jail for more than 10 years.

Commissioner Sandy Praeger said the insurance department “gathered information that proved valuable in producing a sentence that should make other potential criminals think twice.”

Brown was indicted by a federal grand jury in December 2007 for allegedly issuing certificates of insurance for mortgage applications that he knew were fraudulent. Prior to that, Commissioner Praeger issued an emergency cease and desist order for any insurance activities for Brown, his wife Deatrice, and the Brown Insurance Agency.

A total of 24 insurance department cases against Brown were initially provided to federal authorities then. KID added several more cases following the indictment, the latest in 2009.

Source: Kansas Insurance Department, www.ksinsurance.org