Insurance company scrutinized

Monday, August 11, 2003
By SCOTT HALL
Daily Journal staff writer
Johnson County, Indiana

Florida prosecutors gathered evidence in Johnson County last week as they prepared to try a White River Township man on felony charges related to an illegal insurance operation.

William Paul Crouse's Greenwood-based company, TRG Marketing, operated a financially unsound employee benefit plan that left thousands of clients across the country with millions of dollars in unpaid medical claims.

The plan was shut down in November 2001 under pressure from insurance regulators in several states. The company vacated its offices in the South Park Business Center in July 2002, as the Indiana attorney general's office was seeking a court order to freeze its assets.

This year in Florida, where the benefit plan had more than 7,000 clients, the Office of Statewide Prosecution filed felony charges of racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering and unlawful transaction of insurance against Crouse and partner Carmelo Zanfei of Illinois.

Crouse, 34, was arrested in April at his home in the Golden Grove Estates subdivision and is free on $250,000 bond.

Though he has consistently ignored interview requests, Crouse has said through attorneys and written statements that the benefit plan was well intentioned and that the company did its best to cover claims left unpaid by unscrupulous third-party administrators.

Investigators, however, say they have uncovered a pattern of deception intended to lure clients desperate for health coverage while skirting state and federal regulation, a pattern resembling other cases that have ended in unpaid claims and criminal charges.

The amount of money TRG collected in its two-year run is undetermined, as is the amount of outstanding claims. With more than 12,000 former clients in more than 40 states, however, both total in the millions.

One staffing company in Florida paid TRG more than $4 million, and its 2,500 employees were just a portion of the victims nationwide, Chief Deputy Assistant Prosecutor John Roman said.

Although the investigation is complex, a key question for the Florida prosecutors who visited Indiana last week is a simple one: What happened to the money?

Aside from examining local court documents and interviewing state workers familiar with the case, the investigators were looking for assets that might be seized to pay restitution.

Most of all, they want to talk with former employees who could shed light on TRG's operations. The prosecutors believe the Greenwood office was a telephone and data center, where many people may have worked short stints without knowing the true nature of the business. Prior to 2001, TRG was based in Batesville.

“It's helpful to have people on the inside who see things and hear things,” Assistant Statewide Prosecutor Robert Finkbeiner said. “We're just trying to shake a few trees.”

Accompanied by an investigator and a paralegal, the prosecutors also took photos Thursday at the former TRG offices and at Crouse's home.

A status hearing on Crouse's criminal case is scheduled Sept. 8 in the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court in Orlando, Fla. Witnesses at the trial are expected to include insurance agents who sold the TRG benefit plan and now face possible license revocation for their involvement.

Crouse's attorney, Bernard Dempsey of Orlando, did not return a call seeking comment.