North Carolina Insurance Agent Can’t Appeal Sentence in $700,000 Fraud

A former North Carolina insurance agent who pleaded guilty to defrauding trucking company clients and a premium finance company of hundreds of thousands of dollars cannot challenge her sentence and restitution order, a federal appeals court decided.

Glenda Taylor-Sanders, of Charlotte, signed a plea agreement in 2020 and was sentenced to 66 months in prison and more than $700,000 in restitution, payable to DW Express, a transportation company, and to BankDirect Capital Finance. She later appealed her sentence, saying she did not understand that sentencing guidelines provided so much prison time. She also argued that a judge had exceeded his authority in imposing such a large amount of restitution.

But the 4^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found Tuesday that Taylor-Sanders had waived her right to appeal when she signed her plea agreement and appeal waiver agreement.

“Taylor-Sanders attempts to frame one issue on appeal—her appeal regarding the district court’s order of restitution for DW Express’s lost profits—as falling under this exception. We are not persuaded,” the 4^th Circuit judges wrote in dismissing her appeal.

Federal statutes and court rules allow a defendant to press a plea-agreement appeal only in limited circumstances. The appellate judges said that her plea and waiver of appeal were valid, that the sentencing judge had conducted a proper hearing before locking her away, and the woman’s credibility had been impeached by the lower court.

The opinion also provided details on how the agent’s fraud scheme unfolded, from 2017 to 2019. Instead of putting trucking company payments toward insurance premiums, Taylor-Sanders used the money to buy exotic cars and football tickets and to make mortgage payments, the court said.

“Her scheme unraveled when one trucking company, DW Express, discovered its insurance policy was canceled for nonpayment after it tried to file a claim for an April 2019 trucking accident,” the court explained.

The woman, age 52 at the time, also orchestrated premium finance loans for the transport company from BankDirect, an Illinois-based firm. The finance company wired the funds to an account Taylor-Sanders had set up for her own benefit, court documents alleged.

At her 2020 sentencing, the district court judge agreed to prosecutors’ request for restitution: $242,000 to BankDirect and $491,000 to DW Express. The trucking company restitution includes the value of a truck and trailer totaled in an accident; $120,000 for towing, storage, cleanup and lost cargo expenses from the accident; $140,000 in lost profits due to the destroyed truck and trailer; and $63,000 for loan payments DW Express made that were meant to repay part of the BankDirect loan, but which Taylor-Sanders did not send to the finance company.

Taylor-Sanders was a licensed insurance producer and insurance broker and the owner of G. Taylor, Inc., an insurance agency in Charlotte. She surrendered all of her licenses in 2018, records show.

Topics Fraud Agencies North Carolina