SANTA ANA — A former Lake Forest insurance broker pleaded guilty Thursday and was immediately sentenced to three years of probation for stealing about $183,000 in an insurance premiums, exposing victims to the danger of uninsured losses.
Karen Marie Dondanville, 56, pleaded guilty to 90 counts, mostly felonies, including grand theft, theft from an elder, fraudulent insurance benefit claims, assisting in a false claim, making false entries in records or returns, and forgery. She also admitted sentencing enhancements for property damage exceeding $65,000 and aggravated white collar crime between $10,000 and $500,000.
Dondanville accepted a plea deal with prosecutors, her attorney, Fred Fascenelli, said.
“Now she can make strides to make these people whole,” Fascenelli said of her remaining free of custody. “With her being on probation everyone benefits… The goal usually is you want to compensate the victims.”
He said personal problems contributed to sloppy oversight that prompted the criminal case.
The California Department of Insurance said Dondanvile was ordered to pay $335,349 in restitution to the victims, which includes payments to victims who had uncovered losses as a result of Dondanville’s theft.
Dondanville’s insurance broker license was revoked by the state in November 2019, according to California Department of Insurance investigator Braelyn Velasco in court papers.
She stole $183,074 from January 2012 through January 2020 in “payments, insurance premiums and return premiums from 32 customers through the use of fraud, misrepresentation and forgery,” Velasco said in court papers when the case was filed in 2021.
She provided customers fraudulent insurance documents to bill for excessive premiums, and at times provided proof of insurance to mortgage companies when the customers had none, Velasco stated.
The defendant received and deposited premium payments from victims and “failed to remit all — if any — of the premiums to the victims’…
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