Georgia to Pay $870,000 to Whistleblowers Fired by Beck

The state of Georgia has settled a whistleblower lawsuit brought by three Insurance Department employees who reportedly leaked information about disgraced former Insurance Commissioner Jim Beck.

“I think the primary lesson here is that these ladies are heroes or should be heroes,” the workers’ lawyer, Ed Tarver, told Atlanta TV station Fox5 News.

The three longtime department workers filed suit in 2019, claiming that Beck fired them after he took office early that year. They will now split about $870,000 from the state.

The suit notes that Beck blamed the employees for giving information to a news reporter about Beck’s allegedly suspicious activity, including an arson fire that destroyed a house he owned. The TV station found that two weeks before the arson, Beck nearly doubled his insurance coverage, from $95,000 to $186,000.

Beck said the increased coverage was needed because of renovations he was doing. No one was charged in the arson.

The station also reported that Beck, while serving as manager of a state-created residual property insurer known as Georgia Underwriting Association, also took a full-time job as victim-witness advocate for a west Georgia district attorney’s office.

Beck was elected state insurance commissioner in 2018 but was removed from office a few months after he took over in 2019. He was convicted this year of embezzling more than $2.6 million from the underwriting association while he managed it from 2012-2018. He was sentenced to seven years in federal prison earlier this month, but he has appealed the sentence. He also must pay restitution to Cincinnati Insurance Co., which covered the losses the association incurred in the fraud scheme.

The three women who settled the lawsuit are Loranda Allen, Candice Sprague, and Sherry Mowell. They issued a joint statement: “We hate that this convicted felon destroyed so many careers when he came into office. That is sad for all Georgians.”

Topics Georgia