A unanimous 12-member jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff Christine Ramirez, 75, following an 8-week trial during which her attorneys claimed MetLife and subsidiaries New England Life Insurance Co. and New England Securities looked the other way while brokers sold investors on a bogus fund called the Diversified Lending Group. Government regulators exposed DLG as a scam operation in 2009, and its founder Bruce Friedman later died in a French prison fighting extradition to the United States on related criminal charges.
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Outcome
The percentages of fault assigned by the jury:
MetLife: 20% NELICO: 7.5% NES/MetLife Securities: 7.5% Tony Russon: 30% Russon Financial: 30% Scott Brandt: 5%
Phase 2 - The jury has awarded Plaintiff Christine Ramirez a total of $15,360,000 in punitive damages.
-$10,000,000 MetLife -$2,500,000 NES/MetLife Sec. -$2,500,000 NELICO -$360,000 Tony Russon