The life-insurance business was good to Steven M. Brasner for much of the past decade, so good that he and his wife named their motor yachts after it. Their first, a 34-footer, they christened “Preferred Risk.” Its 50-foot replacement: “STOLI on the Docks.” <><><> Click to enlarge image. The judge cited a forged signature on the application and a fake letter, purportedly signed by the applicant’s long-time accountant, to verify the applicant’s net worth at $44 million when it actually was about $100,000.The son of a Wall Street trader, Mr. Brasner graduated from Long Island University in the late 1980s and soon was selling insurance on Long Island. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, his wife, a lawyer on Wall Street, wanted to move from the area, says Mr. Eiglarsh, Mr. Brasner’s lawyer. They settled on Florida, where they had family.They moved into a new home, a $1 million Mediterranean-style villa in Davie, Fla., near Fort Lauderdale. In 2006, they added an oceanfront getaway, a $565,000 condo on Hutchinson Island, which became home to the yachts.Mr. Brasner initially sold life insurance for a financial-planning firm in Boynton Beach, then in 2005 opened Infinity Financial Group in the same town. He decorated his office in a New York Yankees theme, including posters of old-timers, jerseys and autographed baseballs, according to Mr. Eiglarsh.Mr. Brasner raised his profile by serving as an occasional spokesman for a Boca Raton weight-loss center that pitched eating a certain type of cookie to suppress hunger. He boasted in a television commercial he lost 115 pounds in six months. In another promotion, he noted that the cookies could be packed into his “hectic business schedule” and had helped transform him from uninsurable to “a preferred risk.”He found customers through a low-cost tax preparer who worked in the same office, according to an affidavit filed by Florida authorities in the criminal case.Mr. Brasner also drew at least one acquaintance of his widowed mother in Boynton Beach. “He was very nice. I trusted him,” says Elaine Gelch, a Boynton Beach neighbor who took out a $5 million policy in 2006 through Mr. Brasner. She is one of six former clients to give statements to Florida officials for their case.According to an affidavit filed by Florida prosecutors, Mr. Brasner’s pitch was that seniors, with no out-of-pocket expense, could make money by taking out, then selling the policies. Mr. Brasner said they would receive 3% to 5% of the face value of the insurance once it sold on the secondary market, which would happen when the policy was two years old …
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Tags: account, Business, financial, Financial Group, Insurance, money, Wall Street
