N.C. insurance agent pleads guilty to murder, fraud www.privateofficer.com
Posted by privateofficernews on May 22, 2009
CHARLOTTE, N.C. May 22 2009 — A Charlotte insurance agent accused of killing an insurance investigator pleaded guilty to 25 counts of embezzlement on Thursday.
Michael Howell, 41, of Indian Trail ran the Dilworth Insurance Agency. Police say he killed Sallie Rohrback, a state Department of Insurance agency examiner, by hitting her in the head with a piece of computer equipment when she confronted him about financial irregularities in his records in May 2008.
The state Department of Insurance said agents spent nine months looking into Howell’s records. Officials with the agency said that each embezzlement count represents a client’s premium payment that Howell pocketed instead of forwarding to GMAC Insurance and Discovery Insurance companies.
The agency said that between March 2004 and May 2008, Howell took more than $150,000. Although hundreds of Dilworth Insurance Agency customers were left without insurance because of Howell’s actions, the state officials said GMAC Insurance and Discovery Insurance took care of the affected policies to help the customers who were swindled.
Howell is charged with first-degree murder in Rohrback’s death. He has agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder in Rohrbach’s death, prosecutors said, but that plea has not yet been scheduled.
Howell is being held in the Mecklenburg County Jail.
Michael Howell, 41, of Indian Trail ran the Dilworth Insurance Agency. Police say he killed Sallie Rohrback, a state Department of Insurance agency examiner, by hitting her in the head with a piece of computer equipment when she confronted him about financial irregularities in his records in May 2008.
The state Department of Insurance said agents spent nine months looking into Howell’s records. Officials with the agency said that each embezzlement count represents a client’s premium payment that Howell pocketed instead of forwarding to GMAC Insurance and Discovery Insurance companies.
The agency said that between March 2004 and May 2008, Howell took more than $150,000. Although hundreds of Dilworth Insurance Agency customers were left without insurance because of Howell’s actions, the state officials said GMAC Insurance and Discovery Insurance took care of the affected policies to help the customers who were swindled.
Howell is charged with first-degree murder in Rohrback’s death. He has agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder in Rohrbach’s death, prosecutors said, but that plea has not yet been scheduled.
Howell is being held in the Mecklenburg County Jail.
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