Priest in Frankel insurance scam sentenced

Published: 2004-09-14

JACKSON, Miss. (CNS) -- In successive sentences delivered in two states, an Italian priest has been fined $15,000 and placed on five years' probation for his minor role in the massive insurance swindling scheme of jailed financier Martin Frankel. Msgr. Emilio Colagiovanni, 84, was fined $15,000 by a federal judge in New Haven, Conn., Sept. 9. There he pleaded guilty in 2002 to federal counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. On Sept. 13 a state court in Jackson, Miss., suspended a prison sentence for the priest but ordered he get five years' probation. He pleaded guilty there in 2002 to one count of conspiracy to deceive state insurance regulators. The attorney general's office recommended a suspended sentence because of the priest's cooperation in the office's attempt to recover stolen insurance funds. At his sentencing in New Haven, Msgr. Colagiovanni said he was "very sorry if anybody has been hurt" by his actions. Frankel, captured in Germany in 1999 after an international manhunt, pleaded guilty in 2002 to 24 federal charges related to his years-long scam in which he bilked $208 million in assets from insurance companies he bought out in five states. He is to be sentenced this October.

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