A former licensed insurance agent is being described as the “Bernie Madoff of Orange County” after being charged with operating a Ponzi scheme that ciphered $11 million from more than two dozen victims.
75-year-old Joseph Francis Bartholomew, along with co-defendant Wendy King-Jackson, is being charged with more than 30 felonies associated with an investment scheme that involved a church, a former California Angels baseball player and several family trusts.
California State Department of Insurance spokesperson Nancy Kincaid called Bartholomew the “Bernie Madoff of Orange County” after “us[ing] his insurance business to gain people’s trust.”
“He did it in the name of greed,” Kincaid said.
A report from the Orange County Register says Bartholomew falsely promised investors quick returns of 15% to 40% from their original investment. At the time, he was owning and operating MBP Insurance Services, where King-Jackson worked as an insurance agent.
For her part, King-Jackson is accused of selling unsecured securities based off fraudulent insurance policies.
The pair was “making promises on things [they] couldn’t deliver and didn’t deliver,” Kincaid said. “Those involved are people who lost so much in the financial meltdown and they’re trying to make up lost group.”
Bartholomew was running the Ponzi scheme between July 2005 and May 2014. He and King-Jackson were taken into custody on Nov. 20.
He is being held in lieu of $11.3 million bond and faces up to 42 years in state prison, while King-Jackson faces a possible 16 years.
She was released after posting bond.
