'Annuity King' Gets 15-Year Sentence, Files Appeal

A federal judge in Tampa, Florida, last week sentenced Phillip Roy Wasserman, a Florida man who once promoted himself as “the Annuity King,” to 15 years in prison in connection with his role as a founder of FastLife Insurance.

Wasserman began selling financial services products in Florida in 1990. He started FastLife, a web-based life, health and annuity brokerage firm based in Sarasota, Florida, in 2016. The firm failed a few years later.

Prosecutors accused Wasserman of misleading FastLife’s investors about its prospects and performance, using cash from newer investors to make payments to the original investors and telling victims not to cooperate with the investigators. In May, a jury convicted him of five counts of wire fraud, three counts of mail fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, and one count of tax evasion.

In addition to sentencing Wasserman to a term in prison, U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell ordered him to spend three years on supervised release, according to court records.

The judge previously ordered Wasserman to pay restitution. The final tally included in the sentencing order requires him to pay $5,993,523 to FastLife investors and $903,063 to the Internal Revenue Service.

The judge did not impose a fine on top of the restitution amount.

The sentencing order calls for Wasserman to report to prison voluntarily Feb. 23.

Wasserman, who was educated as a lawyer, has been representing himself with support from William Fargo Sansone. Sansone previously represented Wasserman as a court-appointed attorney.

Wasserman filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit on Friday. In the appeal, he asked for court-appointed counsel provided under the Criminal Justice Act.

Wasserman has argued in court filings and in an email interview that he made an honest effort to start a legitimate business; that the government’s own records show that total investment in the firm exceeded what the outside investors put in; that the outside investors were sophisticated, accredited investors; and that the prosecutors relied heavily on testimony from a witness who was taking antipsychotic medication.

Wasserman also maintains that the judge communicated with the jurors in an improper, biased way.

The prosecutors may have been especially harsh because Wasserman was active in the fight to keep the Securities and Exchange Commission from classifying non-variable indexed annuities as SEC-regulated securities and because he was well-known for holding seminars at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, according to Wasserman.

Wasserman also has filed a civil suit against the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation and officials. He contends that the office and office officials have a politically motivated vendetta against him because of his successful efforts to oppose the U.S. Senate campaign of Betty Castor in 2004, at a time when the office was headed by a friend of Castor.

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