A one-time sales manager for Humana pleaded guilty Tuesday to taking part in a bribery scheme that netted the participants more than $2 million from a South Carolina company for steering insurance brokers their way.
Glenn A. Fine, 56, of Louisville entered the plea in U.S. District Court in Louisville after paying $100,000 in restitution, which will go to Humana after sentencing and forfeiting $900,000.
Fine and 48-year-old James Albert Wegner Jr., of New Port Richie, Fla., told prosecutors they took money from Cutler & Associates of Columbia, S.C., in exchange for the referrals. Wegner pleaded guilty in January. No sentencing date has been set for either man.
Cutler & Associates President Shep Cutler and a business associate, Dan McNerney, were named as participants in court proceedings. Attempts to contact McNerney were unsuccessful Tuesday.
Cutler was no longer listed as company president on Tuesday. An email sent to an address previously listed for him was not immediately returned.
Neither Cutler nor McNerney had been charged as of Tuesday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lettricia Jefferson-Webb said Wegner and Fine were supposed to refer insurance brokers and agents, known as Group Producing Agents or GPAs, to Managing General Agencies, known as MGAs. The MGAs would contract with Humana to service the GPAs in selling Medicare Advantage and Medicare Prescription Drug plans to Medicare enrollees.
Cutler & Associates was one of the largest MGAs to contract with Humana. Jefferson-Webb said the group hatched the plot at a hotel in Florida and between February 2006 and at least June 2010, Cutler & Associates issued checks totaling more than $2 million to accounts held by Fine and Wegner in Louisville, Ky., and New Port Richey, Fla.
Jefferson-Webb described the accounts as belonging to “sham companies.” Jefferson-Webb said Humana cooperated with the investigation.
“Because of this, Humana suffered losses and had to pay legal fees for the investigation,” Jefferson-Webb said.
The restitution will go to Humana, but it remains unclear how much of the forfeited money the company will receive.
“Whether they suffered a loss above and beyond that is something that will be argued by both sides,” said Fine’s attorney, Scott Cox of Louisville.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Dave Whalen released Fine on $25,000 bond and ordered him to forfeit his passport. Fine faces a maximum of five years in prison, although Jefferson-Webb said a lesser sentence will be sought for him because Fine cooperated with the investigation.