District Man Convicted of Defrauding Insurance Company
Defendant Lied to Obtain Life Insurance Policy in the Name of His Dying Brother

WASHINGTON—Roscoe Grant Jr., 58, a District of Columbia resident, was convicted today by a jury in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia of six felony counts arising from an insurance fraud scheme, United States Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. announced.

Grant, a former Ward 7 ANC Commissioner, was convicted of two counts of conspiracy, two counts of mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, and insurance fraud. The defendant, who faces a maximum sentence of up to 20 years of imprisonment on the lead charge and a two-year mandatory sentence, will be sentenced on February 1, 2011 by the Honorable Judge Ricardo M. Urbina, who presided over the trial. He was ordered to be detained pending sentencing.

The evidence at trial established that, between December 2004 and February 2006, Grant conspired with others to defraud Transamerica Life Insurance Company. Specifically, he obtained a false life insurance policy in the name of his brother, who was seriously ill at the time, listing himself as the sole beneficiary. The defendant made false representations to Transamerica about his brother’s employment status and his ability to work, and also forged his brother’s signature to an insurance application form. Grant’s brother died from his illness in July 2005.

After his brother’s death, Grant helped to generate false documentation to convince Transamerica that his brother had worked for a company with a Transamerica group life insurance policy, and was thereby eligible for insurance. However, Grant knew that this information was false, and that the policy had been obtained under false pretenses. Based on false representations, Transamerica paid the defendant more than $33,000 in insurance benefits.

In announcing today’s verdict, U.S. Attorney Machen commended the efforts of the FBI special agent who worked on the case, as well as Special Agent Anne Thomas of the U.S. Department of Labor Office of the Inspector General’s Office of Labor Racketeering & Fraud Investigations, and Senior Financial Fraud Investigator Carl Ditchey of the D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities & Banking, for their work investigating the charges. He also commended the staff of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Paralegal Specialists Mary Treanor, Tasha Harris, and Maggie McCabe, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Haray, who prosecuted the case.