Ex-Insurance Company Executives Indicted for Fraud in New Orleans

A federal grand jury recently indicted three former insurance executives with The Oath for Louisiana on conspiracy and fraud charges resulting from their alleged attempt to hide the health insurance company’s crippled financial condition, according to the Associated Press.

Named in the indictment were Barry Scheur, 54, of Newton, Mass., Robert McMillan, 56, of Garland, Texas, and Rodney Moyer, 59, of Doylestown, Penn., U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said.

The Oath for Louisiana was one of the state’s largest health insurers until it collapsed two years ago.

“The indictment is a tremendous injustice,” Shaun Clark, the New Orleans-based attorney for Scheur, said Friday. “He fully intends to defend himself.”

Bruce Ashley, Moyer’s lawyer, said he had no comment because he had not seen the indictment. “We may have some comment after the arraignment,” he said.

Herb Larson, attorney for McMillan, did not return a telephone call for comment.

According to the indictment, between September 2000 and December of that year, the three men “devised a scheme to defraud and mislead the Louisiana Department of Insurance into believing that The Oath for Louisiana was meeting the required (net worth) minimum of $3 million, and thereby unlawfully enriching themselves through continued operation of The Oath, during a time when the company did not have the adequate net worth required by state regulators.”

The minimum net worth requirement is designed to ensure that insurance companies and health providers have adequate capital with which to pay insurance claims.