NU Online News Service, Sept. 11, 3:57 p.m. – Monsignor Emilio Colagiovanni has pleaded guilty in Hinds County Circuit Court in Jackson, Miss., to state criminal fraud charges, according to Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore and Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale.
The charges stem from a state investigation of allegations that financier Martin Frankel conspired to defraud policyholders of Franklin Protective Life Insurance Company, Franklin, Tenn.; Family Guaranty Life Insurance Company and First National Life Insurance Company of America, both of Jackson, Miss.; and the Mississippi Department of Insurance.
Colagiovanni, a former judge of the Apostolic Tribunal of Roman Rota, waived indictment and pleaded guilty to one count of making fraudulent statements and a second count of taking part in a conspiracy with Martin Frankel to help Frankel loot the insurance companies.
Frankel pleaded guilty to state charges of conspiracy and fraud May 24 in a plea bargain. Other colleagues of Frankel made their own plea bargains with prosecutors late last year.
Federal charges are still pending against Frankel in New Haven, Conn.
Colagiovanni, an Italian national, was president of the Monitor Ecclesiasticus Foundation, Rome. Prosecutors say Colagiovanni misled Mississippi regulators by backing up Frankel's contention that the MEF had financial ties to the Saint Francis of Assisi Foundation, an entity created by Frankel to help hide his acquisition of the insurance companies.
