We would love to hear from you. Click on the ‘Contact Us’ link to the right and choose your favorite way to reach-out!

wscdsdc

media/speaking contact

Jamie Johnson

business contact

Victoria Peterson

Contact Us

855.ask.wink

Close [x]
pattern

Industry News

Categories

  • Industry Articles (21,155)
  • Industry Conferences (2)
  • Industry Job Openings (35)
  • Moore on the Market (414)
  • Negative Media (144)
  • Positive Media (73)
  • Sheryl's Articles (800)
  • Wink's Articles (353)
  • Wink's Inside Story (274)
  • Wink's Press Releases (123)
  • Blog Archives

  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • August 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • November 2008
  • September 2008
  • May 2008
  • February 2008
  • August 2006
  • Neasham Looks to Uncertain Future Even After Winning Appeal

    October 10, 2013 by Steven A. Morelli

    The judges’ decision to overturn the conviction of theft in what was a simple annuity sale might have seemed like an obvious outcome to observers, but Glenn A. Neasham has learned the hard way not to assume anything in a court.

    After all, Neasham went from making more than $400,000 a year with a thriving insurance business supporting a wife and four children in an elegant house in a northern California lake town to living in a house provided by his in-laws, as his wife returns to work as a dental assistant and the family subsists on food stamps. He went from parsing the details on building a dream house on top of a hill to learning the intricacies of filing for personal bankruptcy. All because of a verdict few thought could have happened in a case that baffled even the most advanced legal experts.

    Supporters and lawyers in his appeal told Neasham he had a rock-solid case, but he’s heard that before.

    “My attorney in the very beginning said there wouldn’t be a conviction on this and of course there was and I was absolutely shocked,” Neasham said.

    Many in his community and in the life insurance industry shared his sense of shock. Even the prosecutor admitted she did not prove that Neasham knew that his client suffered from dementia, which was one of the basic points of her case.

    Neasham was convicted on Oct. 21, 2011, for felony theft from an elder because he sold an Allianz MasterDex 10 indexed annuity to an 83-year-old woman later said to have had dementia. Neasham and two of his assistants have insisted the client did not show cognitive impairment during the 2008 transaction. Neasham faced four years in prison, but was later sentenced to 60 days in jail and his insurance license was revoked.

    In the original trial, Neasham’s attorney advised him not to testify because he felt the state did not show it even had a case. The decision not to testify is one of the many things Neasham now wishes he could do over.

    But a mistake he isn’t repeating is taking things for granted in court. That’s why even though the three-judge appeals court panel seemed to have shredded the prosecution’s case in the September hearing, Neasham was checking the court’s website every 15 minutes for the decision ever since.

    On Tuesday, when he saw The People v. Glenn Andrew Neasham, he sat down, calmed himself and opened the PDF. In it, Justice Stuart Pollak point-by-point showed the prosecution hadn’t even come close to proving Neasham committed theft and that the judge erred so badly in his instructions to the jury that the mistake had “constitutional significance.” Pollak seemed to be perplexed even by the prosecution’s definition of theft.

    “Under the prosecution’s theory of this case, merely cashing a check for a person known to suffer from dementia would support a larceny conviction,” Pollak wrote.

    Larry Nevonen, a longtime proponent of Neasham’s who attended the appeal hearing, said he was almost embarrassed for the state’s attorney.

    “The judge asked the hypothetical that if you gave him a hundred-dollar bill and he gave you five twenties would that be theft,” said Nevonen, who is an insurance agent, professor and lawyer. “And she hemmed and hawed and finally said ‘Yes.’ Another judge asked, ‘Are you aware of the implications of what you are saying?’ ”

    But Nevonen understood why Neasham, who is unfamiliar with the appellate court process, would have been nervous about the outcome. That’s because Neasham’s lawyer was first in the proceeding and a judge went after him with questions about the client’s ability to consent.

    Neasham remembered stiffening at the table as the judge “hammered” at his lawyer.

    “My wife and I weren’t sure really what happened,” Neasham said after the hearing. “We’re just hoping.”

    The anxieties that filled out the Neasham family’s life since county investigators started asking questions in April 2008 finally unbuckled when he told his wife and mother about the appellate decision.

    “We all just started bawling,” Neasham said. “My wife, myself, my mom. We couldn’t say anything. We just cried.”

    The next step for Neasham is to try to get his insurance license back, file for bankruptcy and start anew. As he takes stock of his life and future, Neasham said he is thankful for some things that have come out of the ordeal.

    “I’ve gotten to know my kids better,” Neasham said. “I am not so concerned with some things anymore. I don’t need the big, fancy house. I don’t need the nice car.”

    Neasham said he is also grateful for Nevonen and a core group of supporters who pulled him through. Nevonen said Dick Weber, as president of the Society of Financial Service Professionals (FSP), was instrumental in rallying the association to back Neasham’s case.

    Weber, a California insurance advisor, said the implications of the case were clear to him.

    “It wasn’t just what was happening to Glenn, but to all of us,” Weber said of the precedence the case represented.

    Weber and FSP retained a law firm to file a friend of the court brief that helped support Neasham’s appeal and was cited in the appellate decision. FSP’s attorneys also helped find the law firm that took over Neasham’s appeal free of charge when it appeared that Neasham’s court-appointed attorney was overwhelmed by the case.

    Prosecutors can still appeal the decision and retry the case. Nevonen said he thought both were unlikely because the Supreme Court would kick back an appeal due to the faulty jury instruction and a second trial would have to rely on new facts that would damage the prosecution’s case even further.

    “So, I don’t think they would have anything to build a new case on,” Nevonen said.

    But Neasham has heard that before.

    Originally Posted at InsuranceNewsNet.com on October 10, 2013 by Steven A. Morelli.

    Categories: Industry Articles
    currency