Five executives convicted of producing a sham insurance contract deal between General Re Corp. and American International Group argued in the U.S. Court of Appeals that a district court committed several procedural missteps during their 2008 trial.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York heard arguments contending that the District Court in Connecticut erred in a number of areas, including not excluding evidence from the case, not properly instructing the jury on certain matters of law and allowing testimony that the defendants believed was perjured.
In its brief to the appeals court, the government answered that if there were an error, the total evidence against the defendants was overwhelming.
Ronald Ferguson, former Gen Re chief executive officer; Elizabeth Monrad, Gen Re chief financial officer; Christopher Garand, Gen Re senior vice president for U.S. Underwriting; Robert Graham, former Gen Re senior vice president and assistant general counsel; and Christian Milton, AIG's vice president of reinsurance, were convicted in 2008 of a scheme to manipulate American International Group's financial statement with a sham insurance contract in 2002.
