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Insurance Dealer Acquitted in U.S. Fraud Case

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From Times Wire Services

A California insurance dealer accused by federal prosecutors in a sweeping nationwide health insurance fraud case has been acquitted in the first of as many as five trials.

Angelo T. Commito, along with an insurance broker and a union official, was found innocent Thursday by a federal jury of charges of embezzlement from the union’s pension fund and accepting kickbacks on insurance contracts. The jury deliberated seven hours before reaching the verdict.

Commito, 43, who owns Labor Health and Benefits Plan, still faces trial in San Francisco on fraud charges in connection with his business of supplying union insurance coverage.

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“The government vendetta against Angelo Commito is shown for what it is: a bunch of rumors and gossip that cannot stand up to the test of a jury trial,” said Deputy Federal Public Defender Harry L. Hellerstein, Commito’s lawyer in San Francisco.

In separate indictments in San Francisco, San Diego, Atlanta and Baltimore, Commito is accused of paying kickbacks to an undercover FBI agent.

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