McAuliffe among investors in Rhode Island insurance scam that preyed on dying people
Democratic candidate for Va. gov., ex-RI justice's previous law firm among Caramadre's clients
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe and ex-state Supreme Court Justice Robert G. Flanders’ previous law firm are among those who invested with Cranston estate planner Joseph A. Caramadre, according to the list prosecutors submitted in federal court Wednesday.
McAuliffe, now Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia, and Flanders’ prior firm, Flanders & Medeiros, are among dozens of the investors to be named as prosecutors try to tally the alleged losses insurance companies sustained in an investment scheme they say Caramadre orchestrated.
Also identified as participating in the investments are Msgr. Raymond B. Bastia, secretary for planning and financial services for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence; former Cranston police chief Walter J. Craddock; and Gaythorne "Poochie" Angell, a Smith Hill bookmaker.
Prosecutors presented the list in their effort to prove that Caramadre and his former employee, Raymour Radhakrishnan, caused more than $46 million in losses to insurance companies through an investment approach that used the identities of terminally ill people.
Federal prosecutors have cast Caramadre as the mastermind of a multimillion-dollar scheme in which he and Radhakrishnan stole identities of terminally ill people. They then used that information to purchase investments his clients profited from after the people died. Both pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges days into trial.
Caramadre and Radhakrishnan and their lawyers appeared Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Sullivan at a hearing to determine what restitution, if any, the men should pay. They argue that insurance companies never checked the health of the people in whose names the investments were being purchased, in this case the terminally ill people.
McAuliffe's campaign did not immediately return a phone call.
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