MISSISSIPPI ENDS LAWSUIT TIED TO FRANKEL FRAUD

Mississippi insurance commissioner Mike Chaney has filed a motion in a state court to drop charges against three remaining defendants in a lawsuit that predecessor George Dale filed in 2001 in the wake of the $200m fraud scheme that former financier Martin Frankel waged against small insurers in five states. In the motion to dismiss charges against Monsignor Emilio Colagiovanni, the Monitor Ecclesiasticus Foundation and Endurance Investment Ltd, Mr Chaney's attorneys said that regulators were unlikely to recover any additional looted funds beyond the $154m already found. Mr Frankel had set up a charity in the British Virgin Islands and used Monsignor Colagiovanni, the foundation and its Vatican bank account to give legitimacy to his purchase of insurers that he proceeded to loot and leave insolvent. In 2002, a federal judge fined the monsignor $15,000 and gave him a suspended sentence. Mr Frankel was handed a near 17-year sentence under which he could be released in 2015.