Former Louisiana Deputy Insurance Commissioner Sentenced

A former deputy commissioner at the Louisiana Department of Insurance has received a prison sentence for racketeering, according to Justice Department officials.

Acting United States Attorney J. Walter Green in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Louisiana announced that Richard L. Chambers, Sr., 68, of LaPlace, La, was sentenced after having pled guilty to racketeering based on his corrupt activity while serving as deputy insurance commissioner.

Chambers was sentenced 30 months imprisonment, 1 year of supervised release following imprisonment, a fine of $10,500, and forfeiture of $11,341 as part of the federal investigation dubbed Operation Blighted Officials.

The U.S. Attorney’s office said Chambers was involved in two corrupt schemes in 2009 and 2010 while serving as deputy commissioner.

In the first, Chambers used his official position to steer insurance business from municipalities and other entities to an insurance agent in exchange for a split of the commissions, federal officials said. He created the scheme and estimated that it would generate between $200,000 and $4,000,000 in commissions.

In the second scheme, Chambers took $5,000 in cash bribes to use his official position to fraudulently secure $500,000 in private investor funding for a conceptual trash can cleaning product, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

This matter is part of Operation Blighted Officials, a long-running public corruption investigation conducted primarily by the United States Attorney’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This matter was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Corey R. Amundson who serves as the senior deputy chief of the criminal division.

Source: U.S. Attorney’s Office