North Carolina Judge Sets Lindberg’s New Trial Date for March 2023

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A new trial for North Carolina insurance executive Greg Lindberg has been set for March 2023, three years after his conviction on bribery charges, a conviction that was later overturned.

Federal prosecutors and Lindberg’s attorneys met with U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn, who set a schedule for proceedings leading to the tentative trial date, according to a description of the hearing posted on the federal courts’ web site, the Associated Press and local news outlets reported.

Cogburn released Lindberg from a minimum-security prison in Alabama last month, weeks after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated Lindberg’s convictions from March 2020 and ordered a new trial.

Lindberg had been sentenced to more than seven years after being convicted of attempting to bribe North Carolina’s insurance commissioner to secure preferential regulatory treatment for his insurance business. The 4th Circuit panel declared Cogburn had erred by giving jurors in Lindberg’s trial misleading instructions before they began deliberations.

Lindberg, who had become a large political donor in North Carolina politics before his 2019 indictment, “looks forward to the opportunity to clear his name in the court of law as well as the court of public opinion,” Lindberg spokesperson Susan Estrich said in an emailed statement. “The fact remains that the case against Mr. Lindberg is purely political.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte, which helped prosecute Lindberg, declined comment late Monday.

The March 6 trial date was also set for John Gray, a Lindberg consultant who was convicted of the same two counts as Lindberg. Gray also had his convictions vacated for the same reasons.