Former Cougar / NFL Player - In The News - Bad News

Insurance fraud scam in San Diego if Iirc. Byron Frisch! Cougars, Cowboys, and Giants. I guess it can be tough to maintain an NFL lifestyle.



He is a private financial advisor if anyone needs such advise. Might have special rates now.



Iirc, he was in the Sark 1996 era.

It looks as if his involvement was minimal, but with RICO and current conspiracy law, all it takes is knowing silence in these things to get rang up.

Not as aggregious as it appears.

snoscythe wrote:
It looks as if his involvement was minimal, but with RICO and current conspiracy law, all it takes is knowing silence in these things to get rang up.

Where did you read minimal involvement?



What I read said he helped round up Elderly people to apply for free Life Insurance and that the applications were then doctored up and altered. It said something about them selling the policies issued to investors and that they got $1M plus in proceeds. It was not clear how you turn free life insurance applications into profit. The details would be an interesting read. It was also not clear what the impact to the elderly people scammed was.



In So. Cal, there have been a couple of major real estate / financing scams that were led by LDS Church members that went awry in the real estate bust, so that has generated some bad publicity. In at least one of those, the husband and his wife appear to have joined the Church as recent converts specifically to meet and scam members.



In at least one of those, the leaders of the scam probably felt it was a win / win deal for everyone concerned, and it may have turned out that way if real estate had not tanked leaving the scammed borrowers upside down. If RE had kept climbing, the properties would have been rented and then sold for a profit and everyone would have made money. Instead, the borrowers, who probably should have known better than to get involved, ended up with their credit destroyed and losing any down payments they made.



I would be interested in the mechanics of the insurance scam because it isn't at all clear how they monetized that for a profit.

Details from the official FBI press release:



http://www.fbi.gov/sandiego/press-releases/2013/insurance-agents-and-attorneys-charged-in-50-million-insurance-fraud-scheme" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



My understanding from non-media sources is that Frisch knew his partner was doing this, but merely looked the other way rather than doing anything to stop/report it. However, his consulting business (his partnership with Giordano) profited from him looking the other way, and therefore he profited from looking the other way, which is the theory of liability against him.

snoscythe wrote:
Details from the official FBI press release:



http://www.fbi.gov/sandiego/press-releases/2013/insurance-agents-and-attorneys-charged-in-50-million-insurance-fraud-scheme" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



My understanding from non-media sources is that Frisch knew his partner was doing this, but merely looked the other way rather than doing anything to stop/report it. However, his consulting business (his partnership with Giordano) profited from him looking the other way, and therefore he profited from looking the other way, which is the theory of liability against him.

The FBI release contradicts the non-Media sources. Not that I totally trust the government in all things and I do not trust the media much at all - but those reports trump unknown non-media sources for me.



I am still curious how the mechanics of this were all supposed to work. Apparently, old people got free life insurance. the 4 conspirators paid the premiums for the time being. The conspirators got some nice commissions for selling the policies. They had plans to sell the policies to investors - that part is still unclear to me.



I am just curious if this was an everyone wins plan that went awry, or if it was one of those take the $1.5M in a briefcase and head to the airport kind of schemes and everyone but you loses.

A simple understanding of criminal conspiracy theory helps to realize that the FBI release does not contract anything and is written very broadly with little detail other than the general structure of the scam--All four are charged with conspiracy, and co-conspirators are criminally liable for the acts of the other co-conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy, so any criminal act by any one of them can be charged against the other co-conspirators as if they committed the act themselves.



My understanding is that Frisch's knowing silence and profit from the scheme are the basis for his charged conspiracy, which nets him into liability for the other mail/wire fraud charges. Once they prove conspiracy on his part, all they have to do to nail him on the other charges is to prove one of the others did it and it furthered the scam. They don't have to prove anything against him other than conspiracy, and he then gets to pay for what the other co-conspirators did as if they proved he did it himself.



With (i) the advent of RICO, (ii) changes to conspiracy liability since the advent of the "War on Drugs", and (iii) the jaw-dropping amount of new criminal offenses added to the CFR by federal agencies each year, I've seen estimates that the average American commits 3 felonies a day and doesn't even realize it.



http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



The Wall Street Journal has been investigating the phenomenon for 2 years now with a series of stories:



http://topics.wsj.com/subject/F/federal-offenses/6853" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My daughter is a criminal prosecutor here in California. She started in drunk driving cases moved to felonies, and currently is prosecuting domestic violence cases. SO I will run that by her. But the specific language in the report stating, without qualification, that THEY rounded up unsuspecting elderly, etc., just sounds like more than she did it, I knew, but I didn't say anything.



Even if that is so, I knew and just loked the other way - so I could make some big bucks - well that is not minor involvement.

Cougarbib wrote:
Even if that is so, I knew and just loked the other way - so I could make some big bucks - well that is not minor involvement.

You're the only one that said money was his motivation for silence. Where did you come up with that?



See how the new criminal justice system works? They charge you with something, and you're automatically a bad person with bad intentions simply because the system charged you with something, therefore you MUST be a bad person if the government is throwing its weight at you. People start drawing every inference in the negative against you simply because your name is attached to a charge.

I think I have figured this out. Pure speculation on my part.



Byron Frisch was self employed as a financial advisor with an office in an affluent community. Giordano was not part of that business. Frisch advertises himself on LinkedIn as helping individuals locate money they are unknowingly losing possession of and returning it to their control or some such wording. Very vague.



Many financial advisors are not fully independent and recommend financial solutions and sell such products or refer to affiliated companies or other companies that provide such services. The client is charged a fee for the advice and the advisor also earns a commission from the sale of the recommended product.



Giordano operates an insurance agency in the same affluent community.



I speculate this business model. And it is a "win win" "nobody gets hurt" intended model with a little fraud mixed in. It is unclear whether the people buying the insurance knew of the fraud. Frisch knew about it or he would not be guilty of any wrong-doing. Giordano committed the actual fraud. The two attorneys who acted as trustees knew about the fraud, or they would not be guilty of any wrong-doing.



Speculative Model.



Financial advisor finds elderly people and offers them some financial reward if they apply for "free" life insurance and assign the death benefits to the trustee. This part sounds legal. The elderly know that they have no payments to make. They may or may not know that payments are required, but someone else is making the payments. Common sense would tell them such is the case. They were probably told it was the case. None of this sounds illegal yet. For the elderly clients, they are only complicit, if they knew that their applications were being fraudulently modified by Giordano. This parallels the RE case I mentioned previously. Clients knew of at least part of the fraud. In that case, the clients lost a ton of money, and only a few were dragged into the criminal charges either due to mercy or impracticality of proving that they were not duped.



This case could be different as clients probably profited.



More speculation. Frisch recommended that clients buy large life insurance policies from Giordano and assign the death benefits to Giordano giving him the rights to further sell those rights to investors. His clients would be paid a fee by Giordano that would exceed the fee for the advice from Frisch. Nothing illegal yet.



Giordano falsified information on those applications to get the insurance companies to sell the policies. This is the fraud. Everyone that knew of the fraud would be a co-conspirator. Frisch, giordano, and the two attorneys knew and have been charged. The elderly clients - stay tuned. Did Frisch work the Ward List? IDK. The RE case I mentioned did.



Who Knew?



It probably all fell apart when people started dying and the insurance company dug into why they were paying someone with no relationship to the deceased and where payments were made by yet someone else.



Or someone did not make the payment and an elderly client saw their fici score drop or got a collection call.



More likely, an elderly client who knew of the fraud felt guilty or got scared and became a whistleblower like a man in my Ward on the aforementioned RE case.



More speculation:



It was also probably Frisch's role to find investors to buy the rights to the death benefits.



That is my guess. Maybe NFL players.



At least nobody started killing the elderly clients to cash in.



But this was not a Ty Detmer - unknowingly duped - type situation.



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Cougarbib wrote:
I think I have figured this out. Pure speculation on my part.

And that's as far as anyone needs to read, because anything that follows is trash.

snoscythe wrote:

Even if that is so, I knew and just loked the other way - so I could make some big bucks - well that is not minor involvement.

You're the only one that said money was his motivation for silence. Where did you come up with that?



See how the new criminal justice system works? They charge you with something, and you're automatically a bad person with bad intentions simply because the system charged you with something, therefore you MUST be a bad person if the government is throwing its weight at you. People start drawing every inference in the negative against you simply because your name is attached to a charge.

Sno - you posted that it was his knowing silence and PROFIT from the scheme that got him dragged in.



We all realize that he is innocent until proven guilty as are the other 3 individuals.



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Cougarbib wrote:

Cougarbib wrote:
Even if that is so, I knew and just loked the other way - so I could make some big bucks - well that is not minor involvement.

You're the only one that said money was his motivation for silence. Where did you come up with that?



See how the new criminal justice system works? They charge you with something, and you're automatically a bad person with bad intentions simply because the system charged you with something, therefore you MUST be a bad person if the government is throwing its weight at you. People start drawing every inference in the negative against you simply because your name is attached to a charge.

Sno - you posted that it was his knowing silence and PROFIT from the scheme that got him dragged in.

Yes, but I never said profit was his motive in silence--you inferred that.

snoscythe wrote:

snoscythe wrote:

Even if that is so, I knew and just loked the other way - so I could make some big bucks - well that is not minor involvement.

You're the only one that said money was his motivation for silence. Where did you come up with that?



See how the new criminal justice system works? They charge you with something, and you're automatically a bad person with bad intentions simply because the system charged you with something, therefore you MUST be a bad person if the government is throwing its weight at you. People start drawing every inference in the negative against you simply because your name is attached to a charge.

Sno - you posted that it was his knowing silence and PROFIT from the scheme that got him dragged in.

Yes, but I never said profit was his motive in silence--you inferred that.

Guilty as charged. I inferred that you meant profit was the motive for his silence. It seemed and seems like a reasonable inference.



What do you think was the motive for his silence? I realize that I do not know and can only speculate and that you do not know either - sans hypnosis and polygraph evidence. What reasonable motive do you speculate. Possible candidates - ignorance of the law - laziness - not paying attention - blackmailed ??? Other?



It will probably take 2 to 3 years for this to play out. It is too bad he is the most famous of the 4 - that has made him the most infamous.



Great plea bargain opportunity in there for someone to rat out whomever was the ring leader.

Not wanting to jeopardize a long-time friendship/partnership and thinking silence wasn't criminal?

snoscythe wrote:
Not wanting to jeopardize a long-time friendship/partnership and thinking silence wasn't criminal?

Yes. Ignorance of the law would have been my 2nd guess. Tough sell for a jury - even if true - given the profit being made. And, of course, ignorance of the law is not a valid defense - but might get sentencing / plea bargaining sympathy if judge, prosecuter, or jury believe it.



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