MacKenzie Named Insurance Prosecutor Of The Year

The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud said its first Prosecutor of the Year Award is going to a Los Angeles assistant district attorney who has prosecuted insurance swindlers using tax fraud charges of the kind used to convict Al Capone.

Assistant D.A. Albert H. MacKenzie's creative courtroom strategy “is a silver bullet in many insurance fraud cases,” said Dennis Jay, executive director of the coalition.

Mr. Jay said “suspects often quickly plead guilty when confronted with airtight tax charges. This produces more convictions, and faster, than often lengthy insurance investigations and trials.”

He added that tax fraud could become an effective courtroom tool in other states and insurance prosecutors around the United States should study the strategy's potential in their jurisdictions.

“We have identified, investigated and prosecuted some of Los Angeles County's worst fraud offenders. Al targets and outmaneuvers crooked attorneys, physicians, chiropractors and clinic owners,” said Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley.

Mr. MacKenzie heads the Fraud Interdiction Program, which began in 2006 in the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office. It's a partnership with California's tax agency–the Franchise Tax Board–plus numerous insurers and law-enforcement agencies.

The coalition said Mr. MacKenzie compares the income that suspects have reported to the tax agency against the claims money insurers have paid them. Usually suspects have received far more insurance money than they've declared on their tax returns, thus triggering tax-fraud charges. Many suspects don't file tax returns at all.

Mr. MacKenzie's program, according to the coalition, earned 15 convictions in 2007 involving swindlers who made more than $20 million in bogus claims. His conviction rate was 100 percent. He also has opened investigations of, or has identified, more than 200 other suspects who've made at least $300 million in bogus claims in health, auto and workers' compensation insurance.

According to the coalition, suspects often quickly plead guilty to tax fraud rather than face an almost certain conviction at trial. Prosecuting insurance-fraud suspects for felony tax evasion thus usually lands convictions within months while insurance cases can last a year or more.

Shorter cases increase the volume of convictions and the tax investigations also uncover widespread evidence of insurance fraud, money laundering, grand theft and other crimes that lead to convictions on more charges, the coalition said.

The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud is an alliance of insurers, consumer organizations and government agencies combating all forms of insurance fraud.