CHICAGO — The owner of a suburban Chicago insurance agency has been sentenced to seven years in federal prison for swindling more than $1 million from clients by collecting annuity premiums for policies that he never purchased.
DANIEL M. ROSENBAUM owned and operated Alexander & Rosenbaum Financial Group LLC, an insurance agency in Kenilworth, Ill. Beginning in 2016, Rosenbaum collected more than $1 million in annuity premiums from at least 18 clients, including friends and family members, for policies that he never purchased. Rosenbaum instead used the money for his own benefit, including spousal and child support payments, credit card payments, vehicle and other loan payments, and purchases at a jewelry store. Rosenbaum attempted to conceal the fraud by creating fake annuity documents and providing them to his clients. Some of the phony documents contained the logos of legitimate insurance companies that Rosenbaum had cut and pasted into the documents.
In addition to the annuity fraud scheme, Rosenbaum also engaged in fraud related to the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which was created by the CARES Act to cover lost revenue due to economic disruptions from the Covid-19 pandemic. Rosenbaum filed three fraudulent PPP loan applications in his name and, unbeknownst to them, the names of two close family members, for which he was paid a total of $53,537. Rosenbaum also fraudulently obtained $65,826 from the State of Illinois by filing two fraudulent applications for unemployment insurance benefits in his name and, unbeknownst to her, the name of a close family member.
Rosenbaum, 56, of Brown Deer, Wisc., pleaded guilty last year to a federal wire fraud charge. U.S. District Judge Manish S. Shah imposed the sentence Tuesday during a hearing in federal court in Chicago.
The sentence was announced by Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Robert W. “Wes” Wheeler, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI. The South Chicago Heights, Ill. Police Department provided valuable assistance.
“Not only was Rosenbaum stealing his clients’ money, but he was also leaving them without the annuity coverage they expected to have,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Prashant Kolluri argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum. “Without that coverage, a number of his clients suffered substantial financial hardship.”
Source: U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Illinois
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