CHICAGO – Former insurance broker Michael Segal, subject of a 2019 book holding his criminal conviction up as a disgrace, laments the lack of accountability for prosecutorial misconduct.
Author Maurice Possley attaches a note from Segal at the end of “Conviction at Any Cost,” an account of government helping a business ruin a competitor.
While Possley carefully describes stunning events, Segal’s endnote compresses them into personal loss and social danger.
“Some people may believe that the government does not prosecute someone for no reason and that if government parties engage in misconduct, the end justifies the means,” Segal wrote.
“I now understand that this is not true.”
Segal was sentenced to a 10-year prison term in 2005 – served eight years – on accusations he looted $30 million from his company Near North National Group. His business had grown from a small operation into the fifth largest independent insurance brokerage in the U.S., worth $250 million, but it and 1,000 job were destroyed by his prosecution.
His arrest came after he filed a civil suit against a takeover group within his company.
He describes his arrest as a tactic to coerce him to become an undercover informant in a wider federal investigation.
“If I had known at the outset what I now know about how a racketeering conviction drains your assets and deprives one of the ability to fight wrongful charges, I probably would have backed off my civil lawsuit against the takeover group,” he wrote.
“Additionally, I probably would not have allowed my company’s lawyers to file pretrial motions asserting prosecutorial misconduct in violation of constitutional protections which, although well documented, triggered the filing of the RICO charge as well as the threat, which the government ultimately carried out to indict Near North which destroyed 45 years of my life’s work and passion.”
Challenging violations of his rights was a mistake, he wrote, because he didn’t understand the power of the government and its tactics.
“I was the target of a vindictive prosecution that destroyed a $250 million company, cost me $50 million in forfeitures, and denied me bail unlike virtually every other person convicted of a white collar crime.
“My ten year sentence was more severe than those imposed for virtually but all the most violent crimes.
“The jobs of 1,000 employees evaporated.
“At the same time, I have never doubted for one second my decision to refuse to wear a wire and to work undercover.
“I refused to participate in framing people I had no relationship with, much less my friends.”
The government taped him for more than 600 hours including his lawyer, “and not one minute was introduced into evidence,” he wrote.
Segal goes on to assert that the takeover group’s collaboration and the government’s protection enabled them to operate with impunity. He further asserts they stole records and business from the company that employed them, nurtured their careers, and promoted them to executive positions.
Prosecutors, FBI agents, and district judge Ruben Castillo at times put their careers and reputations ahead of truth and justice, he wrote.
“As this book went to press, some of the major players were still attempting to profit from their involvement in my cases,” he wrote.
“No one had suffered any sanction.”
He wrote that former prosecutor Virginia Kendall became a federal judge, “touting her involvement in my prosecution as getting the support from a U.S. Senator.”
The government provided benefits to competitor Aon and the takeover group including advance knowledge of court filings and arrest, he wrote.
“Their signing and stock bonuses were not touched,” he wrote.
“In return, the takeover group provided benefits to the government including a prepackaged false regulatory and accounting prosecution of me and Near North, access to confidential and privileged documents, and the leak of government supportive case information to the media.”
Finally, prosecutors arranged $250,000 whistleblower fees for the four takeover group members.
“I was advised that it would be unlikely that the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission would review federal prosecutors,” he wrote.