By Associated Press, Tuesday, March 22, 4:04 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/jury-hears-closing-arguments-in-texas-mans-life-insurance-fraud-trial-in-virginia/2011/03/22/ABIHa6DB_story.html

RICHMOND, Va. — A federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday that the case against Texas businessman Christian Allmendinger really isn’t complicated, despite the several-inches-thick stack of financial records and other exhibits entered into evidence.

“You can’t lie to get people’s money,” Michael Steven Dry, an assistant U.S. attorney, said in closing arguments on the seventh day of Allmendinger’s trial on seven counts of mail fraud, money laundering and securities fraud.

But defense attorney Barry Pollack said Allmendinger never intended to defraud anyone, and investors didn’t lose money until after he was squeezed out of the business by his partners in 2007.

“Mr. Allmendinger is not responsible for what happened after he left,” Pollack said.

Allmendinger was one of the founders of A&O Life Funds. The company used investors’ money to buy life insurance policies from insured people at less than face value, then collected the benefits when those people died. Prosecutors claim Allmendinger and his associates lied about various aspects of their company, including its size, its record of success and how it handled investors’ money.

According to the government, hundreds of people in about three dozen states and Canada lost about $100 million because A&O’s owners used investors’ money to finance their own lavish lifestyles rather than make payments to keep insurance premiums in force. Prosecutors showed the jury photos of Allmendinger’s $2 million Spanish-style home and other property, including a 15-carat diamond ring and Lamborghini and Maserati automobiles.

“There is no doubt A&O made a lot of money and Mr. Allmendinger became a wealthy man, and he lived like a wealthy man,” Pollack said.

However, he said prosecutors failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Allmendinger got rich by defrauding others. He said the government’s case, built in part on the testimony of former Allmendinger associates who have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, simply didn’t add up.

“If you still have questions that haven’t been answered, the government hasn’t done its job,” Pollack said.

Jessica Brumberg, another assistant U.S. attorney, repeatedly used variations of the word “lie” in her closing arguments.

She said Allmendinger was instrumental in creating a website that listed fictitious company officers and falsely claimed that A&O was an international company with offices in several cities and 70 years of insurance experience. In reality, she said, Allmendinger and Brent Oncale were the sole officers at that time, the only office was in Houston and the company was barely a year old.

The website also claimed A&O had leveraged $375 million in investors’ money into $800 million.

“The $800 million figure is a complete lie,” she said.

Pollack acknowledged that the website was full of “exaggeration, hyperbole and stuff that was just plain made up,” but he said the site was intended for agents selling A&O investments and was password-protected. It did not target investors, he said.

Prosecutors also said Allmendinger signed off on other marketing materials that were riddled with lies.

“The whole point of the website and the marketing materials was to get people’s money,” Dry said.