Greg Lindberg and companies ordered to repay $526 million as mogul lobbies for Trump pardon

Greg Lindberg, a convicted fraudster and former Durham insurance mogul who was once North Carolina’s biggest political donor, was ordered to pay policyholders hundreds of millions of dollars Friday — a decision handed down by a Wake County judge who described Lindberg’s conduct as “reprehensible.” 

Lindberg and another top executive in his businesses pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in separate criminal cases. Prosecutors alleged Lindberg enriched himself by skimming off the top of his life insurance empire, which has since been largely dismantled but was at one point made up of numerous companies.

Friday’s case was a civil trial to determine how much money Lindberg and his companies should pay back to the people who bought life insurance annuities but were left without expected returns. At the conclusion of Friday’s trial, Wake County Superior Court Judge Graham Shirley said “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” by Lindberg and others has left hundreds of thousands of people needing to be made whole.

Shirley ordered Lindberg and two of his remaining companies to pay more than $526 million. Most of that wasn’t required to cover their actual damages, but was instead punitive. Judges have discretion on whether to award punitive damages and Shirley said it felt warranted in Lindberg’s case “to punish him and discourage others from committing similar wrongful acts.”

Shirley said he’s confident Lindberg has the money to pay up from funds “that he has, to put it lightly, stolen.” Shirley estimated the scope of Lindberg’s theft as being in the billions.

Lindberg wasn’t in court. Michael Newell, who represents Lindberg as well as one of Lindberg’s remaining companies in the case, Global Growth, declined to comment after the hearing on Friday. 

Shirley also ordered Richard McDonald, Global Growth’s chief operating officer, to surrender himself within 10 days to Wake County deputies on charges of civil contempt. If he fails to do so, Shirley said, he’ll have him arrested and thrown in jail for at least 90 days. “He needs to start preparing, packing his bags,” Shirley said.

A Global Growth spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Trump pardon?

Lindberg used his riches to buy a yacht, purchase multiple mansions in the Triangle and across the country, and to fund millions in political giving that went to both major political parties in North Carolina, but mainly to Republicans.

The allegations at the heart of Friday’s civil case, as well as the prior guilty pleas by Lindberg and a top executive, are separate from a separate federal corruption case involving Lindberg.

But it’s all intertwined: Lindberg was previously charged with trying to bribe the state insurance commissioner to fire a regulator who was looking into his business practices. He was convicted, but then won on appeal, and is now facing the charges again.

The then-head of the North Carolina Republican Party, former U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes, pleaded guilty in 2019 to lying about his role in trying to arrange the bribes to Republican Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey. Causey played along while secretly wearing a wire for federal investigators.

Trump pardoned Hayes, but not Lindberg, during his first term in office. Lindberg recently began paying Trump’s ex-bodyguard-turned-lobbyist to try to get him pardoned now that Trump is back in office — something Causey has publicly tried stopping, WRAL reported in December. 

Shirley wanted to know Friday what a Trump pardon might mean. Presidents can only pardon federal crimes. And while this civil case is happening at the state level, it’s based largely on federal criminal investigations.

Wes Camden — the lawyer for the companies trying to win money back to pay policyholders — told Shirley that if Trump pardons Lindberg, it could prevent Lindberg from having to pay out any more money to the victims of his financial crimes.

Camden said he might seek formal sanctions against Newell, alleging that it appears his main legal strategy on Lindberg’s behalf is not to win, but rather to get Trump’s attention, while simply dragging out the state proceedings, in hopes that Trump might deliver a pardon before Lindberg is ordered to pay even more money.

“A lot of the statements that were made in the most recent filings are likely being put into the public record in support of Mr. Lindberg's well-publicized and ongoing efforts to secure a pardon,” Camden said. “He is attempting to create his fantasy world through public filings.”

Camden characterized the filings on Lindberg’s behalf as being filled with defamatory conspiracy theories about Causey, “increasingly unhinged and untethered, not only from the evidence, but frankly from reality.”

Shirley gave Newell a chance to respond. Newell said he stands by what he’s written in court filings and had “nothing further to add.”

Toward the end of the trial, Shirley encouraged Camden to seek sanctions against Newell. “You’re free to file your Rule 11 [sanctions] motion,” Shirley said. “I invite you to.”

Newell declined to comment after trial.

Testy hearing 

The criminal activity and subsequent dissolution of Lindberg’s life insurance businesses left tens of thousands of policy-holders unsure if they’ll ever get their money back, lawyers for the policyholders contend. Shirley said the fact that many of them were elderly made Lindberg’s actions particularly odious.

They’ve been partially repaid already, WRAL reported in 2023. But a final resolution had been put on hold due to appeals that have gone back and forth at the state Court of Appeals and Supreme Court before landing back in trial court.

Friday’s $526 million verdict expands on the smaller verdict from 2023.

It was unclear Friday if Lindberg and his companies plan to appeal further. 

The hearing also became heated quickly, and stayed testy throughout.

At one point, Shirley interrupted Newell, Linberg’s attorney, to say he was absolutely not going to rule in favor of one of his arguments, saying that doing so “would be basically holding up two middle fingers” to legal precedent established by the state Court of Appeals in one of its recent rulings in this case.

The judge then spent more than an hour peppering Newell, repeatedly asking if he understood basic legal concepts, if he had read key filings in the case, and if he had written or even read one of the legal filings submitted under his own name.

Newell responded yes to most of the questions, although he acknowledged at one point he didn’t know exactly what Lindberg pleaded guilty to in a related criminal case.

That appeared to stun the judge, who had a bailiff find a copy of the criminal indictment and hand it out. Shirley then read it aloud to the court, explaining how prosecutors said Lindberg and others had been accused of hoodwinking regulators while illegally “extracting millions of additional dollars from the insurance companies.”

Newell was asking Friday to stop or lessen damages that could be collected and used to pay people harmed — specifically by undoing a previous temporary restraining order, called a TRO, and receivership for the companies.

“We no longer need the receivership, and also no longer need the TRO,” Newell said.

Shirley was skeptical.

“Do you not see a reason, in the over $1 billion of claims against the estate — there are a billion reasons there, each one of them with a dollar bill — do you not see the reason for them to pursue these damages?” Shirley asked.

Newell said there’s a separate expert, called a “special master” in legal parlance, who could handle it instead. Shirley was skeptical that it would end well for people who are waiting to be reimbursed.

“Like all deals Mr. Lindberg has proposed to the court, none have ever materialized,” said Shirley, who has overseen this case for years.