Ex-Aide to California Official Is Convicted

A former aide to Chuck Quackenbush, the California insurance commissioner who resigned in scandal in 2000, was convicted last week on all charges alleging his participation in the illegal transferring of insurance settlement money to a nonprofit group.

Federal jurors took just 30 minutes Friday to convict Brian “B.T.” Thompson of two counts of mail fraud and one of conspiracy to launder money. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison, with sentencing set for May 27.

Thompson was immediately taken into custody. It was the 38-year-old Thompson’s second trial on charges that he helped siphon off $263,000 from July 1999 to January 2000. He had been convicted of obstructing justice in September by a different jury that deadlocked on the fraud and conspiracy charges, triggering the retrial.

Quackenbush has not been charged with any crime.

Testifying in his own defense Thursday, Thompson made the first public claim that Quackenbush had known about the payments. Thompson testified that Quackenbush had authorized the shifting of insurance settlement money between Thompson and Deputy Insurance Commissioner George Grays.

He told jurors he had discussed the arrangement with Grays and Quackenbush, contradicting their earlier testimony. During cross-examination, Thompson acknowledged he had lied in the past about his dealings with Grays.

Grays testified that he and Thompson had stolen $263,000 of the claims settlement funds though phony “grants” to Thompson’s youth football program and kickbacks to Grays.

Thompson said he had met with Grays and the insurance commissioner in July 1999 and Quackenbush had “confirmed the proposal.” Grays has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the government in return for a reduced sentence.

Quackenbush testified that he hadn’t known about the payments until the spring of 2000, when he had asked his chief deputy, Michael Kelley, “to see where all the money had gone,” the Sacramento Bee reported.

According to Thompson, Grays proposed that Thompson make his Skillz Athletics Foundation a nonprofit group, which would allow it to accept money from the California Research and Assistance Fund.

The fund was a nonprofit created to collect millions of dollars in settlements that Quackenbush made with insurance companies that had mishandled 1994 Northridge earthquake claims.