About Us

On April 12, 2016, at 7:00 am, I heard a knock on the door of my home. I went and opened it to find about eight people. They wore blue windbreakers with large FBI letters stenciled on them. They asked my name. When I told them, they put me against a wall, handcuffed me, searched my home and told my very frightened wife that they were arresting me.

“For what?” We didn’t have any idea what was going on.

While sitting in the backseat of a car, with my wrists locked in cuffs behind my back, we drove to the courthouse in West Palm Beach Florida. The agents told me the matter concerned insurance.

I founded a company that sold insurance, but I closed the business several years previously, in October 2012. I had decided the time was right to move on to other opportunities or possibly retire. We employed about 40 people and did over 100 million dollars a year in revenues.

When I hired a criminal attorney, he surprised me by saying the preliminary fee would be $75,000; if I went to trial, he said, the price could rise by a factor of more than ten. His fee did not include expenses for expert witnesses, mock trials, or other services I might need. When I told him of my innocence, he said that time would tell. We’d have to wait until the prosecutors started to give him “discovery.”

Three months later, he received the discovery and said he would begin to review it all. That took another two months. Again, I asserted my innocence and pledged to go through trial. Before I made such a decision, my lawyer told me that I should understand a few things.

First, he said, the discovery revealed some disappointing news about a person that my business used to employ. That person, a senior case manager, got into trouble with the law in an unrelated matter. In an effort to lessen his exposure to criminal charges, the person began to negotiate with prosecutors. The information he provided resulted in authorities launching an investigation into me, and a grand jury issuing an indictment.

Second, my lawyer explained that my trial would take place in Philadelphia. He explained that members of the jury may not understand the complexity of my case. Prosecutors would depict me as a typical CEO, who lived a lavish lifestyle. Although not germane to the case, those images may prejudice a jury against me. The lawyer advised that if the jury convicted me, I could face decades in prison. He advised that I should authorize him to work toward a plea deal. Based on his guidance, I agreed.