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To: Hogger who wrote (3849)	11/10/1999 9:03:00 PM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4028

In case you might want the details... ----- Investor given 25 years for insurance fraud A Houston investor convicted of stealing money through an insurance investment scam was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison and was ordered to pay more than $1.7 million in restitution if he is paroled from prison. Bud Skillern was convicted by a jury June 24 and was sentenced Thursday by state District Judge Bob Jones. The trial was the first jury trial to come from a two-year investigation of statewide insurance fraud that has been spearheaded by the Travis County district attorney's office. Many other defendants have accepted plea bargains and paid restitution since the Texas Legislature in 1989 voted to help finance the Travis County investigation. "People are beginning to accept that stiff sentences for white collar crime is appropriate," said Kerrie Key, an assistant Travis County District Attorney. "That's been true in federal court, but this is the beginning in state court of a trend." Prosecutors said the Skillern case was a landmark in the ongoing insurance fraud investigation because it marked the first time a defendant had tried to convince a jury that the complicated allegations did not involve criminal activity. Copyright ¸ 1991, The Austin American-Statesman Jim Phillips, Investor given 25 years for insurance fraud., 08-30-1991.

To: Hogger who wrote (3849)	11/11/1999 10:10:00 AM
From: Janice Shell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4028

What I said about this matter, Hogger, was that Mike Skillern testified at his father's criminal fraud trial that he'd helped Dad with the scheme: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/11.91.html Fraud aided by insider Steve Smaha <Smaha@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL> Thu, 13 Jun 91 17:08 EDT From the 13 Jun 91 Austin American-Statesman, staff report: "Son testifies against father in insurance case" The son of a Houston insurance fraud defendant told jurors Wednesday that he installed a command in a computer system that would delete traces of an investment plan created by his father. Bud Skillern, 56, former financial consultant to the insolvent American Teachers Life Insurance Co., has pleaded innocent to accusations that he stole funds from an investment plan involving the firm. Tuesday, witnesses outlined Skillern's plan, which used ATL to sell $100,000 single-premium annuities. [...] Prosecutors spent Tuesday questioning witnesses to try to show that Skillern's method of having buyers acquire the annuities through promissory notes - simple IOUs - is highly questionable, because annuities normally are bought with cash. On Wednesday, Skillern's son, 24-year-old Michael Don Skillern, testified that he was in charge of programming computers at ATL to make calculations required by the investment plan. The son told jurors that he built a command into the program that would delete all traces of the plan in the computer system. "The idea was that if (State Board of Insurance) examiners came into American Teachers Life, it would not look good for General Mercantile to be doing business out of American Teachers (office). So I installed an erase feature," said the younger Skillern. He also said that General Mercantile Finance Corp. - a company owned by his father - was supposed to lend money to the annuity buyers. [...] In the grand jury indictment of Bud Skillern, it is alleged that Skillern sold the $100,000 annuities to Premier [Bank of Dallas] after he assured the bank officials that ATL had been fully paid for the annuities. [...]