North Carolina investment firm founder Greg E. Lindberg, who is awaiting retrial on charges he tried to bribe a state official, was indicted in a separate case alleging he orchestrated a $2 billion insurance fraud scheme.
(Bloomberg) — North Carolina investment firm founder Greg E. Lindberg, who is awaiting retrial on charges he tried to bribe a state official, was indicted in a separate case alleging he orchestrated a $2 billion insurance fraud scheme.
Lindberg, 53, and two others were indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Charlotte, court records show. They’re accused of improperly taking money from insurance companies for personal use and lying to regulators to cover their tracks, prosecutors said.
“The indictment reveals a carefully orchestrated scheme that relied on a web of complex financial investments and transactions designed to evade regulators, disguise the financial health of Lindberg’s insurance companies, and conceal the alleged purpose of the scheme: Lindberg’s personal gain,” Dena J. King, the US Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, said in a statement.
The new charges come after Lindberg, the founder of Eli Global LLC, had a 2020 bribery conviction overturned on appeal last year, resulting in his release from prison. In that case, he was accused trying to bribe a elected North Carolina official. He is set to be retried later this year.
Susan Estrich, a spokesperson for Lindberg, said in a statement Friday that the “government is piling on. Their previous case against Greg Lindberg was built on lies and collapsed on appeal when the Court found his rights were violated.”
Thursday’s indictment focuses on alleged wrongdoing between 2016 and 2019, when federal prosecutors say Lindberg extracted “hundreds of millions of dollars” from various insurance companies through a series of loans and other transactions to fund the acquisition and operation of other companies.
In December 2022, one of Lindberg’s top executives, Christopher Herwig, pleaded guilty in a related case to conspiring with Lindberg and others to commit wire fraud, investment advisor fraud, and money laundering, as well as to the making of false statements in the business of insurance, prosecutors said.
Lindberg is formally charged with one count of conspiracy to commit crimes in connection with insurance business, wire fraud, and investment adviser fraud; one count of wire fraud; four counts of false insurance business statements presented to regulators; six counts of false entries about the financial condition or solvency of an insurance business; and one count of money laundering conspiracy.
The case is US v. Lindberg, 23-cr-48, US District Court, Western District of North Carolina (Charlotte).
(Updates with bribery case and comment from Lindberg spokesperson.)
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