Insurance broker sentenced for theft

A Tinton Falls insurance agent has been sentenced to a three-year prison term for failing to secure coverage paid for by business clients.

On June 19, Anthony M. Feliz, of Brick, was sentenced to a three-year state prison term for the second-degree crime of theft by failure to make required disposition of property, according to a press release from the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office.

Feliz pleaded guilty to the charge on Feb. 10. The sentence was imposed by state Superior Court Judge Richard W. English, Monmouth County, who also ordered Feliz to pay $160,176 in restitution.

Feliz's indictment marked the culmination of a five-year investigation conducted jointly by the Prosecutor's Office and the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance.

The investigation began in 2002 when Karabinchak Brothers Inc., an industrial construction company located in Edison, complained to state and local authorities that Feliz, a Tinton Falls insurance agent and broker, had failed to acquire for them the various types of insurance policies necessary for the safe and lawful operation of the business even though they had paid Feliz the quoted premiums, according to a press release from the Prosecutor's Office. Specifically, between October 2001 and August 2003, Karabinchak Brothers paid more than $40,000 to Feliz for insurance coverage. However, Feliz never secured the policies, authorities said.

The investigation revealed that Feliz repeated this illegal activity with 15 other clients, all of whom were mandated by law to carry an array of insurance policies to lawfully operate their companies, the press release stated.

Feliz supplied several of his clients with insurance policies and insurance identification cards that appeared to have been issued by insurance companies. When investigators contacted the insurance companies whose names appeared on these documents, it was determined that the insurance policies and identification cards were fictitious and that Feliz's clients were not in fact insured by the carriers listed on the policies and insurance cards, according to the press release.