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Press Release

Former Insurance Salesperson Sentenced For Defrauding Insurance Companies

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Iowa

A woman who defrauded two insurance companies out of more than $170,000 in sales commissions was sentenced today to more than three years in federal prison.

Melissa Ilene Williams, age 46, from Dike, Iowa, received the prison term after a March 3, 2014, guilty plea to one count of mail fraud.

In a plea agreement, Williams admitted that, between about July 2011 and January 2012, while working as an insurance policy salesperson, she fraudulently obtained advanced sales commissions from two insurance companies.  Williams admitted she obtained the commissions by submitting fabricated life insurance applications to the companies in the names of persons who had not authorized and were unaware of the applications.  Williams admitted she secretly paid the initial premiums on the policies so that the insurance companies would not discover the applications were fraudulent. 

Williams was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade.  Williams was sentenced to 41 months’ imprisonment to be followed by three years of supervised release.  Williams was ordered to make a total of $175,147.32 in restitution to the two victim insurance companies.  There is no parole in the federal system.

Williams was released on the bond previously set and is to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on a date yet to be set.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Peter Deegan and investigated by the Insurance Fraud Bureau of the Iowa Department of Commerce, Division of Insurance, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.  The case file number is 14-CR-25-LRR.

Updated February 19, 2015