As reported in the Miami Herald, four former executives for Vanguard Fire and Casualty Co. were acquitted yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee on charges that they allegedly defrauded the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund of $20 million. The charges arose from the 2004 hurricane season, one of the most deadly and destructive for Florida, in which the State was hit by four hurricanes, Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne.
The defendants were tried by a bench trial (i.e. trial by the judge without a jury). U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle found in favor of the executives, former Vanguard President William Sanders, former CEO Thomas Stinson, Richard Magsam and John Henry Axley III, holding that there could not have been any fraud because the defendants told hurricane fund officials what they were doing and why they were doing it.
Image source: www.afn.org/~savanna/hurricanes.htm