North Carolina Man Sentenced on Workers’ Compensation Insurance Scam

Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida; John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office; and Dan Anderson, Director, Department of Financial Services, Division of Insurance Fraud, announce yesterday’s sentencing of defendant Carl Dale Fuller, 52, of Wake Forest, North Carolina. U.S. District Court Judge Donald L. Graham, sitting in Ft. Pierce, Florida, sentenced Fuller to five years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. In addition, Fuller was ordered to pay $2,859,067 in mandatory restitution.

Fuller previously pled guilty to mail fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud National Employees Services (NES) of more than $2.8 million in what the company believed were insurance premiums for workers compensation insurance. NES, a Florida corporation located in Avon Park, Florida, is a provider of cost-effective services for businesses that outsource employee insurance, including workers’ compensation insurance.

To execute his scheme, Fuller used the name David Walters in e-mails and phone calls and held himself out to NES as an insurance broker. Fuller falsely claimed that he would obtain workers’ compensation insurance policies for NES and the companies they represented. Instead, Fuller kept the payments and never provided insurance coverage.

From mid-2005 through September 2008, Fuller received more than $2 million of NES premium payments, which he used to fund his extravagant lifestyle in Wake Forest and Pinehurst, North Carolina. NES sent the premiums to Fuller under the name of Southeast Services, a company created and controlled by Fuller. The checks were deposited into numerous accounts all controlled by Fuller.

Mr. Ferrer commended the investigative efforts of the FBI and the Department of Financial Services, Division of Insurance Fraud. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Adrienne Rabinowitz, Emalyn Webber and Ellen Cohen.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.