Germantown Insurance Agent Guilty in $630K Fraud Scheme

GERMANTOWN, MD — A Germantown insurance agent has pleaded guilty to submitting hundreds of fake applications, for which she was paid more than $636,000, according to federal officials.

Alicia Jones, 48, of Germantown, pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, in connection with a scheme to submit fraudulent insurance applications using the identities of others, in order to obtain over $630,000 in commissions.

According to her plea agreement, on Nov. 23, 2011, Jones was licensed to sell insurance in Maryland and soon began working for an insurance company not named by federal authorities. The business routinely provided its agents with advance commission payments at the time a new application was submitted to the company, representing about 50 percent of the total commission due.

Prosecutors say Jones admitted that between March 2012 and January 2013, she electronically submitted more than 3,100 fraudulent insurance applications under her name and insurance license, as well as under the names and insurance licenses of others, in order to obtain the advance commissions. Jones submitted over 1,400 fraudulent applications for over 310 fictitious individuals and over 1,700 fraudulent applications for over 370 real people who were not eligible for policies and did not know the policies were submitted on their behalf.

According to the plea agreement, Jones encouraged multiple family members to obtain licenses to sell insurance and work with her. Jones either had access or stole access to her family members’ bank accounts in order to withdraw the advance commission payments on the fraudulent policies she submitted under their names before they noticed the deposits.

Authorities say Jones will be required to pay $636,278.12 in restitution.

Jones faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison when she was sentenced on Feb. 8, 2017.