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Greg Lindberg and his consultant are continuing to fight allegations that they promised to make improper campaign contributions to the re-election campaign for the North Carolina insurance commissioner.
A federal jury convicted Lindberg and the consultant, John Gray, of public corruption and bribery charges last week in Charlotte, North Carolina, after a three-week trial before U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn Jr.
The jury acquitted another defendant, John Palermo, who is an Eli Global vice president.
Resources
- Links to documents related to the rehabilitation of Colorado Bankers Life and its sister companies are available here.
- A set of the rehabilitators' answers to questions frequently asked by producers is available here.
- Greg Lindberg's press releases and other documents related to the litigation, including a slidedeck summarizing the defendants' closing arguments, are available here.
- The U.S. Department of Justice press release about the jury verdict is available here.
- Mike Causey's statement about the jury verdict is available here.
A fourth defendant, Robert Hayes, pleaded guilty in 2018 to making false statements to the FBI, according to officials with the U.S. Department of Justice.
Lindberg and Gray will be seeking a new trial and filing appeals, according to a representative for Global Growth LLC, a Lindberg company.
Greg Lindberg
Greg Lindberg is the founder of Eli Global LLC, the parent of Global Bankers Insurance Group. The group controlled Bankers Life Insurance Co., Colorado Bankers Life Insurance Co. and Southland National Insurance Corp. A North Carolina state court put the companies in rehabilitation in June 2019.
The companies are still in rehabilitation.
Lindberg now serves as the founder of Global Growth, a Durham, North Carolina-based health care technology company.
The Bankers Life company involved in the proceedings has no connection with the Bankers Life and Casualty Company that's owned by CNO Financial Group Inc.
The Case
Federal prosecutors have alleged that Lindberg and Gray made contributions to the re-election campaign of Mike Causey, the North Carolina insurance commissioner, from April 2017 through August 2018, in an effort to influence decisions that could have helped Global Bankers Insurance Group.
Prosecutors say Lindberg and Gray wanted Causey to change the official who was in charge of overseeing Global Bankers.
Causey reported concerns about the political contributions, and about requests made by Lindberg and Gray, to the FBI in January 2018, and he agreed to cooperate with federal investigators, officials say.
Reactions
Causey put out a statement welcoming the jury verdict.
"When I took office, I swore an oath to support and maintain the laws of this state and to faithfully discharge the duties of my office as commissioner of insurance," Causey said in the statement. "I also committed to rooting out insurance fraud and corruption wherever it may be, and to prosecute such fraud to the fullest extent of the law. It is with these guiding principles that I agreed to cooperate with the federal authorities in their investigation.
