INSURANCE AGENT INCARCERATED FOR INSURANCE FRAUD

Attorney General J. Joseph Curran, Jr., announced today that Dorothy Faye Mortimer, 62, of Waldorf Maryland was sentenced for her convictions of felony insurance fraud and felony theft in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County on September 24, 2004. The Honorable Herman C. Dawson sentenced Mortimer to ten (10) years in prison for each offense. He ordered the sentences to run concurrent to each other and suspended four (4) years of the incarceration. Judge Dawson ordered that Mortimer be placed on supervised probation for a period of five (5) years to begin upon her release from prison. The conviction and sentencing follows a joint investigation conducted by the Insurance Fraud Division of the Maryland Insurance Administration and the Office of the Attorney General.

Evidence presented by the prosecutor on September 24, 2004 in the first case against Mortimer included that between the dates of October 26, 1999 and March 24, 2004 Mortimer stole over $131,064.56 in insurance premium payments from Matthews Memorial Baptist Church by accepting seventeen checks from the church that were intended to be insurance premium payments by the church. Mortimer cashed the checks and used the money for her own purposes. Mortimer never obtained insurance policies for the church. The church discovered the fraud only after the church's main building suffered storm damage on April 4, 2004.

Evidence presented by the prosecutor on September 24, 2004 in the second case included that on May 8, 2003 Mortimer misappropriated and stole insurance premium payments from Preeminent Protective Services. Mortimer accepted $1,800 from the company which was intended to be the down payment for renewal of the company's insurance policy. Mortimer used the money for her own purposes and did not renew the company's insurance policy.

Mortimer has been found guilty of violating the insurance fraud laws of the State of Maryland on two prior occasions. She was found guilty August 14, 2000 of failing to return premium payments and was granted probation before judgment. Mortimer was subsequently convicted on November 30, 2001 of misappropriation of premium payments. She was sentenced to eight years in prison of which she was ordered to serve eighteen months of home detention. The remaining six and one-half years of incarceration was suspended in favor of probation for a period of five years. Today, she was found guilty of violating her probation because of the new convictions. The Court continued her probation with the expectation that she will continue to pay restitution in that case following her release from prison.

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