Wanda Greene Allegedly Improperly Used $2.3 Million of
Buncombe County Funds to Fund Fraudulent Life Insurance Policy Scheme
ASHEVILLE, N.C. – A
23-count criminal indictment was returned by a federal grand jury sitting in
Asheville late Tuesday, charging former Buncombe County Manager Wanda
Skillington Greene, 66, of Arden, N.C., with wire fraud, federal program fraud,
and money laundering, in connection with a $2.3 million scheme involving the
purchase of whole life insurance policies for herself and other county
employees using misappropriated County funds, announced R. Andrew Murray, U.S.
Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.
John A. Strong, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Charlotte Division; Director Robert Schurmeier
of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI); and Matthew D. Line,
Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal
Investigation Division, Charlotte Field Office (IRS-CI), join U.S. Attorney
Murray in making today’s announcement.
According to the indictment, Wanda Greene was appointed as
County Manager for Buncombe County (the County) in 1997, and remained in that
position until her retirement in June 2017.
As County Manager, Wanda Greene was responsible for the administration
of all departments of the County’s government under the control of the Board of
Commissioners (the Board). In that role,
Wanda Greene had the power to appoint, suspend, and remove all county officers,
employees, and agents, and was responsible for directing and supervising the
administration of all county offices, departments, boards, commissions and
agencies controlled by the Board. As
part of her duties, Wanda Greene was also required to prepare and submit the
County’s annual budget and capital program to the Board, and to submit annually
to the Board, and make available to the public, a complete report of the
finances and administrative activities of the county at the end of the fiscal
year.
According to allegations contained in the indictment,
beginning in or about April 2015, and continuing until in or about July 2017,
Greene defrauded Buncombe County by misappropriating approximately $2.3 million
of Buncombe County funds to purchase whole life insurance policies for herself,
her son Michael Greene, and eight other County employees, and to purchase an
annuity for another county employee who did not qualify for a whole life
insurance policy. During the time period relevant to the indictment, Buncombe
County received benefits in excess of $10,000 per year under a federal program
involving a grant, contract, subsidy, loan, and other forms of federal
assistance.
The indictment alleges that in April 2015, Greene began
communicating with a Charlotte-based insurance agent about her intent to
procure insurance policies for herself and certain other Buncombe County
employees at County expense. Shortly after
meeting with the insurance agent, Greene falsely began telling selected County
employees that she had been working with the Board on a new benefit program for
certain employees involving the County’s purchase of life insurance policies
for them, at no expense to the employee.
Greene allegedly stressed that only certain employees would be receiving
this benefit, and told the employees with whom she spoke to keep this program
and their participation strictly confidential.
According to the indictment, the policies that Greene was
procuring were whole life insurance policies, with a resulting cash value and
the ability to borrow against such policies.
Furthermore, the indictment alleges that, at Greene’s direction, the
County prepaid the initial payment and several years’ worth of annual premiums
for each policy agreement, which meant that, upon termination of the policy, a
policy owner could receive whatever cash value the policy had, as well as the
remaining prepaid premiums. The indictment alleges that in this manner, in the
first month after Greene retired from her County employment, she was able to
obtain cash out of two such policies, thereby personally obtaining
approximately $396,000 of fraudulently-acquired money funded by Buncombe
County.
According to allegations in the indictment, Greene selected
the employees that would receive the life insurance policies and selected the
amounts the County would prepay for each policy. To fund the scheme, Greene did not seek the
Board’s authorization to purchase these policies with County funds. Rather, in order to gain access to the County
money necessary to fund her scheme, the indictment alleges that Greene inflated
the settlement amounts for two federal civil rights lawsuits against the County
that the Board agreed to pay. She later
fraudulently claimed to the life insurance company, the insurance agent, and to
the various County employees that the Board had also approved and enacted
funding for the life insurance program she had created when it enacted a budget
amendment to settle those lawsuits, when, in fact, the Board never approved,
and never even knew about the existence of, Greene’s life insurance scheme.
The indictment further alleges that after the Board approved
the requisite budget amendment to fund the settlement of the civil lawsuits,
Greene caused a series of interstate wire transactions to make initial lump-sum
prepayments, and later quarterly payments, toward the premiums of the various
insurance policies. According to the
indictment, shortly before she announced her intention to retire, Greene
attempted to quadruple the quarterly payments from $40,000 to $160,000. When the County’s Finance Director expressed
concern about the increased amount, Greene destroyed the handwritten note she had
provided requesting the increase, and told the Finance Director to forget about
any more payments.
On May 30, 2017, Greene publicly announced her retirement,
which took effect on June 30, 2017. The
indictment alleges that, almost immediately upon her retirement, Greene
liquidated her two life insurance policies.
As a result, on or about July 13, 2017, the insurance company sent
Greene two checks totaling $395,859.60, which Greene deposited into her State
Employee Credit Union account. Less than a month later, on or about August 7,
2017, Greene used a portion of the proceeds from the insurance checks to wire
$155,000 from her State Employees Credit Union account to the account of a law
firm in Nashville, Tennessee.
Wanda Greene has been ordered to appear on a summons on the
charges. She is charged with 12 counts
of wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison
and a $250,000 fine; eight counts of federal program fraud, each carrying a
maximum prison term of 10 years per count and a $250,000 fine; and three counts
of money laundering, which carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison per
count and a $250,000 fine.
The charges contained in the indictment are
allegations. The defendant is presumed
innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt in a court of
law.
A separate federal indictment was filed in April 2018,
against Wanda Greene and her son, Michael Greene, for misusing their government
credit cards to make approximately $200,000 worth of improper purchases. Those charges are still pending.
In making today’s announcement U.S. Attorney Murray thanked
the FBI, IRS-CI and the SBI for their investigation of this case, and noted
that the investigation into allegations of criminal activities within the Buncombe
County Government is ongoing.
Assistant United States Attorney Richard Edwards of the U.S.
Attorney’s Office in Asheville is in charge of the prosecution.
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