Insurance agent from Vernal gets jail for fraud
Philip J. Timothy was sentenced late last month to serve 11 prison terms of one to 15 years and four prison terms of zero to five years for 15 felonies related to his misuse of client funds and his efforts to cover up that misuse once a state investigation began.
But 3rd District Court Judge Judith S. Atherton suspended the consecutive prison sentences for Timothy, ordering him to spend six months in the Salt Lake County Jail instead.
Timothy, 57, will also be required to serve three years on supervised probation, be stripped of his insurance license, reimburse the state $104,000 for investigation costs, cooperate fully with an audit of his former company's books and leave $300,000 in a state-administered trust fund for one year to pay restitution to his victims.
Atherton, who characterized Timothy's conduct as "very planned, methodical stealing" and "pretty troubling behavior," denied a request by defense attorney Loni DeLand to allow Timothy to serve his time in the Uintah County Jail in Vernal.
DeLand had also asked Atherton to order his client to wear an electronic ankle monitor for one year rather than serve jail time, a sentence the defense attorney said would allow Timothy to continue to care for a 130-acre farm he had recently planted with alfalfa.
DeLand said he believed the Utah Attorney General's Office and the state insurance department had overstated the number of victims in the case, the number of dollars involved and the number of years Timothy was illegally using money he should have been keeping for or refunding to clients.
"When this is over, I don't believe there will be one penny lost by anyone," DeLand told the court.
Timothy pleaded guilty in April to one count each of racketeering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice; two counts each of filing a false or fraudulent insurance claim, forgery and communications fraud; and three counts each of unlawful dealing with property by a fiduciary and theft by deception.
According to state investigators, Timothy used insurance premium refunds owed to clients to buy two trailers and a $30,000 Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He also failed to return over $44,000 in premium refund monies to an oil-field service company after it canceled its policy and helped create fraudulent bonds worth more than $1.5 million for two construction companies, court records indicate.
"It's his own damned fault," DeLand said. "He's his own worst enemy."
Recent comments
It isn't just a matter of tending to the hay. If his home is...
Not just hay | July 7, 2008 at 1:31 p.m.
The defense attorny what to let him be under house arrest to tend...
G | July 7, 2008 at 8:34 a.m.
