Insurance Swindle Nets Stiff Prison Terms

Alan Teale and Charlotte C. Rentz, husband-and-wife insurance swindlers believed to have cheated consumers--mostly Californians--out of more than $100 million, got stiff prison sentences Thursday from a federal judge in Mobile, Ala., who rejected a lighter plea agreement.

“This court is in the business of justice, not forgiveness,” U.S. District Judge Richard Vollmer said as he ordered Teale, 63, to serve 17 years in prison and repay $50 million to his victims. Vollmer gave Rentz, 53, a 13-year sentence.

Victims ranged from pro football quarterbacks Joe Montana and Jim Kelly to small-business owners whose gas stations and markets burned in the Los Angeles riots.

Teale, a British native who once worked for Lloyd’s of London, masterminded a bafflingly complex network of phony insurance companies with offshore addresses that collected more than $120 million in premiums in California alone, according to the state Insurance Department.

The companies would take money in but not pay out when claims were filed. When authorities shut one company, others sprang up.

Federal prosecutors have identified some $50 million in unpaid claims to about 5,500 policyholders, about 3,000 in California.

Teale and Rentz pleaded guilty in August to racketeering charges that were part of a 41-count federal indictment. They have cooperated with investigators who are trying to untangle related schemes and trace a laundered money trail that leads through the Caribbean islands, Ireland and Belgium.

The $50-million restitution order may prove to be mainly symbolic. Investigators have seized all of the couple’s assets they could find, including a finely furnished $450,000 home in Atlanta, a flat in London and some bank accounts with cash and stock.

“It got out of hand. . . . We have nothing left,” a handcuffed Teale said as he sat in orange prison garb before the judge. “I have a longstanding Christian belief that somehow got lost.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.