Mark Malatesta, a licensed insurance agent from San Clemente, California, has been charged with 16 felony counts related to an alleged $1.6 million fraud scheme targeting elderly southern California residents.
Mr. Malatesta allegedly exploited at least six elderly consumers by falsifying information on annuity applications and netted more than $135,000 in illegal commissions.
"Increasingly we are uncovering financial scams that target seniors," said the Department of Insurance's commissioner, Dave Jones. "These crimes are reprehensible and we will continue to work with our district attorney partners to aggressively investigate and prosecute anyone who targets seniors."
According to prosecutors, Mr. Malatesta convinced a number of seniors to terminate their investments, causing them to lose a total of $45,000 in surrender penalties. The government alleged that he then sold them new annuities for which they did not qualify due to their advanced age. The investments were canceled by the insurers once they discovered that Mr Malatesta had provided false information, the government said.
When insurers canceled the new investments, they refunded the $1,616,897 in deposits when they refunded the victims.
Charges against Mr. Malatesta included seven counts of insurance fraud, six counts of residential burglary, two counts of financial elder abuse, and one count of grand theft with enhancements for white collar crime and the excessive taking of over $1.3 million.
Mr. Malatesta's insurance license has been suspended and the Department of Insurance said that it will pursue revocation if he is convicted of the charges.
Steven A. Meyerowitz
Steven A. Meyerowitz, a Harvard Law School graduate, is the founder and president of Meyerowitz Communications Inc., a law firm marketing communications consulting company. He may be contacted at [email protected].