From Staff Reports 

In a closed meeting July 17, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners unanimously agreed to the first settlement in an attempt to recover taxpayer dollars federal investigators claim were squandered by the former county manager. 

An agreement was reached with Guardian Insurance and its broker, Consolidated Planning. The company sold the county 11 high-priced, whole-life policies — and one annuity for county employees.

The commissioners agreed to accept $2,081,686.37, representing a $230,000 discount on the amount spent on the policies.

The board has said it was misled into approving funds for the policies. The commissioners said were told they were approving funds to settle a wrongful imprisonment case involving coercive interrogation tactics by a former county sheriff, when more than $2.3 million of the sum approved was used to purchase the policies.

Recipients of the policies were assured the benefit was not an uncommon practice across the state, and they were asked not to tell others they were among the select-few recipients. No master list was kept of the recipients, making discovery of the fraud difficult for investigators looking into other financial crimes in county government.

No criminal intent was ascribed to the insurance agent nor the insurance company. They were not named in the lawsuit in order to protect negotiations.

As terms of the settlement, the county signed a liability waiver protecting the insurance company and employees who had policies. All recipients of the policies, except former County Manager Wanda Greene and her son, Michael, had already reassigned them to the county.

Greene had two policies worth $700,000 each. Her son’s policy was valued at $419,000. Greene immediately cashed in her policies upon retirement; her son has refused to reassign his policy.

The county has retained attorney Ron Payne to assist in recovering misappropriated funds that have come to light in an ongoing federal investigation. It is suing for over $950,000 in damages.

Also as part of the civil suit the county has filed against Greene, three years of bank activity from her five State Employees’ Credit Union accounts has been subpoenaed. Pursuant to a summons, SECU revealed the five accounts have a combined balance of almost $120,000. The county also wants to examine the accounts of Greene’s son.