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Matt Lile Pleads Guilty to Embezzlement, Agrees to 1-Year Prison Sentence

2 min read

Little Rock businessman John Mathis “Matt” Lile pleaded guilty Friday and agreed to serve a year and a day in federal prison for embezzling from the insurance company where he was president.

Lile, 56, agreed to pay full restitution for the money he stole from Cosmopolitan Life Insurance Co., which state insurance regulators took into receivership in 2009. Lile was also well known as the former owner of Lulav restaurant in Little Rock.

As part of the plea agreement, federal prosecutors dismissed the second count of the indictment issued in April 2013, which had to do with alleged embezzlement from the related Advanced Insurance Brokerage of America Inc., of which Lile was chairman.

The original indictment put the total amount embezzled at more than $300,000.

Cosmopolitan funded and managed self-insurance health care plans for small businesses around the state. In a hearing before U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright, according to a press release from the office of U.S. Attorney Christopher Thyer, “Lile admitted that he abused his position by using a company-issued American Express credit card to pay for thousands of dollars in personal expenses over a three-year period.

“His charges ran the gamut, including family vacations to Las Vegas, Destin, and Italy, restaurant supplies, cruises, tanning, Hannah Montana tickets, and outlet shopping, among numerous other expenses.”

The sentence and restitution order will be imposed by the court at a later date, according to Thyer’s release.

“It is unconscionable for executives to abuse their positions of power by stealing from the very companies that they are bound to serve,” Thyer said in the release. “The negative consequences of such greed are still greater when those companies play important roles in the health care industry. Honest, hard-working people must be able to trust that the organizations upon which they rely for healthcare will not be bled dry from the inside.”

The FBI and the U.S. Department of Labor were involved in the investigation.

“I hope this sends a clear message to all who sponsor or transact business with employee benefit plans that the federal government will aggressively pursue those who commit crimes against employees and retirees of private-sector health and pension plans” said Deborah Perry, regional director of the Labor Department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration.

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