Crescent City Agency Shut Down for Fraud

Two Pelican Bay State Prison correctional officers have been arrested for stealing insurance premium payments and issuing bogus documents to customers of their insurance agency, some of whom were fellow prison employees, according to the California Department of Insurance. Margaret (Maggie) Young, 61, was arrested at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, Calif., when she reported for work Tuesday. Jerrold (Jerry) Young, 53, did not report to work as scheduled and CDI officers arrested him in Crescent City a short time later. Both were booked into the Del Norte County Jail. Additionally, CDI moved to shut down their Crescent City insurance agency.

CDI said the Young’s were arrested for felony violations of grand theft, forgery, forgery with the intent to defraud, preparing or making a false or misleading statement, and criminal conspiracy.

According to investigators, the Young’s owned and operated the Fraser, Yamor, Jacob and Young Insurance Agency located in Crescent City. The agency has a history of diversion of insurance premium payments collected from consumers and in 2000, CDI issued a warning to the Young’s and their attorney about diverting trust fund money for their own use and other statute violations. The Young’s obtained financing and replaced the missing trust fund money.

The Young’s then began diverting insurance premium payments. Several of their employees allegedly followed suit and also stole money from agency customers.

When the thefts were discovered, the Young’s and their employees attempted to hide the thefts from their customers by issuing additional fraudulent certificates of insurance. Some loss claims were paid by the Young’s, while others went unpaid. They attempted to cover the thefts and their failure to place insurance coverage by issuing the bogus insurance documents. When the thefts began to come to light, the Young’s reported to local police that their office was burglarized and that the only items stolen were records related to the stolen premium payments and a computer terminal used to produce those documents.

During the execution of a search warrant, CDI Investigation Division officers recovered documents produced by Jerry Young in an attempt to cover up the thefts, including a fraudulent certificate of insurance. CDI officers also found and recovered insurance files and documents related to the victims from Maggie Young’s office.

Former employees have come forward and outlined the pattern of spending, theft and conspiracies put into place by Jerry and Maggie Young and their former employee Page Castro, who was also arrested. Additional suspects will be arrested at a later date.

Jerry and Maggie Young recently changed their agency’s name to Young and Company Insurance Brokers.

The arrests were a result of a joint investigation between the California Department of Insurance (CDI) Investigation Division, the Crescent City Police Department and the Del Norte County District Attorney’s Office.

Source: CDI