Bartlett Woman Pleads Guilty to Insurance Fraud

Barbara Buckner filed two fictitious life insurance claims totaling $25,000 from her former employer, Hallmark Services Corporation.

A Barlett woman has pleaded guilty to stealing $25,000 from her former employer through an elaborate insurance fraud scheme, according to the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office. 

In total, Bridgette Buckner, 50, of 537 Rose Lane, Bartlett, pleaded guilty to two counts of Insurance Frauds and one count of Wire Fraud.  

On April 30, 2008, Buckner, an employee at Hallmark Services Corporation, filed a claim on a $10,000 life insurance policy she held on her four-year-old daughter.  Her claim, which was paid in full from the insurance provider, included fabricated Death Claim and Medical Certificate of Death forms.  

On September 24, 2008, Buckner filed another fictitious claim against at $15,000 life insurance policy she held on her husband.  She stated that her husband had been shot and killed while on duty as an FBI agent.  

Hallmark Services Corporation grew suspicious of Buckner’s claims and launched an internal investigation shortly after her second claim was filed.  Their findings were turned over to the State’s Attorney’s Office.  

The investigation revealed that Buckner’s daughter had died four years earlier, long before Buckner started working at Hallmark Services Corporation.  The investigation also found that Buckner and her husband, who was not an FBI agent and was unaware of the life insurance policy, were estranged and had not seen each other since months before Bucker became an employee at Hallmark Services Corporation.

“Once again we see a white collar crime being committed in search of some quick easy money,” DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert B. Berlin said. “While white collar crimes may be difficult to unravel, in the eyes of the law it is no different than any other crime.”

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